Mercedes-Benz Eqe53 vs Audi Sq8 E-Tron

What's the difference?

The EQE is more than an important car for Mercedes. Not only is it the German titan’s latest electric offering, on all-new underpinnings, but it represents the very future of its passenger car range.

It adopts a completely new shape and design language, but it also puts its fastest foot forward, launching with the 53 AMG variant first in Australia, by the end of 2022.

We travelled to Europe to sample it for the first time ahead of its Australian arrival to find out what the future of Mercedes feels like, but also how its go-fast AMG division has managed to leave its mark on an electric car.

Late last year, Audi gave its large SUV range a freshen up by stocking its showrooms with the Q8 55 e-tron model; a rebadged, facelifted full-sized electric SUV designed to go head-to-head with things like the Mercedes-Benz EQE.

As it turned out, the Q8 55 was destined to become the mid-spec model and now Audi has book-ended the Q8 range with the entry-level Q8 e-tron 50 and the flagship SQ8 e-tron.

And while the previous 55 model was available in Sportback and SUV (station-wagon) forms, the latter has now been dropped.

That leaves the 50 model as an SUV only, while the headline act – and the vehicle we’re testing here – the SQ8 can be had in either body style.

The reason we’re concentrating on the biggest, baddest, most expensive variant, is that’s precisely what Audi is tipping the Australian market will gravitate towards.

In fact, as many as 70 per cent of Q8-platform sales could be the SQ8. That’s in line with the Australian market’s fondness for spending up big on the sportiest version of many makes and models, but it remains a bit of an anomaly in the rest of the car-buying world. Nevertheless, it remains the reason we’re focussing on that variant here.

Of course, electrification has never been more important for a carmaker operating here since the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard was announced recently, and even though the Q8 range will be a small percentage of Audi’s sales here, any EV represent progress towards meeting corporate targets.