Mercedes-Benz EQE53 vs Peugeot Boxer

What's the difference?

In the wild new world of fully electric cars there isn’t really an ‘average’ of what to expect. If there was, I’m sure the EQE 53 would exceed it. Its electrification brings the ambiance of a luxury car, while its performance reminds you of what AMG is capable of.

There’s a bit of the mechanical engagement of AMG missing, a relatively small boot, and some won’t be sold on the function-over-form looks, but the EQE 53 is a pleasantly surprising look at the future of fast Mercedes.

It has its faults like any vehicle but it’s a competent all-rounder, that combines sub-$50K pricing with a big payload capacity, mostly user-friendly design, improved safety and a compelling warranty. It also faces stiff competition in the 3501-8000kg GVM class, particularly from rivals with an automatic option. 

The EQE is certainly a departure from the classic lines of the current E-Class sedan. Mercedes-Benz has chosen to take a completely new approach for the electric era, embracing the need for ultra-low drag designs, and a corresponding newfound love for curvaceous surfaces.

It’s fairly imposing too with enormous wheels and an abundance of panels. Needless to say some will find this new design direction challenging. It proved quite controversial in the CarsGuide office, at any rate.

I can say it looks a bit more approachable when witnessed in the metal, and the AMG branded 53s I sampled for this review added a few more much-needed points of interest to this single curve of a design.

This is particularly notable around the rear of the EQE 53 which adds a little tail spoiler and glossy rear diffuser, which help accentuate the width and terraced design of the rear window.

Around the front is a little more featureless, with the blanked-out grille losing the intricate three-dimensional appeal of this car’s combustion equivalents. There’s just something a bit plain about the EQE’s face, although Mercedes has tried to spice it up with interesting headlight clusters.

The inside is spectacular, with a smorgasbord of screens and lights to match an abundance of glossy touch-based surfaces. Some may not be sold on the over-the-top approach, but it feels as futuristic as an EV should be.

The material choices are nice, too, with soft-touch materials atop the dash, doors, and running down the centre console. The ambient lighting is particularly flashy, and works in with the consistent single-piece sort of design which makes up the whole dash.

While the LEDs might be a little too much for some, there are some more subtle detailing points, like the way the centre air vents are delicately worked into the flow of the dash, and the rotor designs of each vent at the edges are intricate pieces.

It comes ready for work with hard-wearing black plastic in the most vulnerable places for scrapes and dents, including the front and rear bumpers and down the sides. The same black finish can be found on the window surrounds, door handles, huge door mirrors (which would not look out of place on a Kenworth) and the housing for the high-mounted third brake light.

It’s a large vehicle measuring 5413mm long, 2050mm wide and, thanks to the conspicuously high roof line, stands 2522mm tall. So, like numerous rivals in this weight class, it can’t access most shopping centre and underground carparks.

The front-wheel drive chassis, with its 3450mm wheelbase and 12.6-metre turning circle, features a simple and rugged combination of coil-spring strut front suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, power-assisted rack and pinion steering and single-leaf/solid beam rear suspension. Long rubber bump-stop cones, attached to the underfloor above each end of the rear axle, provide extra support when the springs compress under heavy loads.

The steel bulkhead, which separates the cabin from the cargo bay, insulates the driver/passenger from cargo bay noise and doubles as a robust cargo barrier. Its window is large enough to allow the driver to make a quick over-shoulder glance at any time to check the load is secure.

Criticisms? The relatively small 5.0-inch media screen can make the reversing camera’s vision difficult to see in detail. The height adjustment on the driver’s seat, using two levers on the lower right side, is clunky to operate. And although the rear barn-door windows are heated, there are no wiper/washers, which we didn’t get to test in wet conditions, which is most unusual for Melbourne.

The EQE is plenty practical up front, with an odd SUV-like seating position providing a commanding view of the road. This seat positioning isn’t an accident or a necessity of facilitating batteries under the floor, but a deliberate design decision by the brand to try to emulate some design choices which have made SUVs so popular.

The result is surprisingly effective, but doesn’t help the view out of the rear of the car, which is a restricted letterbox aspect courtesy of a slinky roofline and tall boot lid.

Still, peering down on the road lets you position and park this large EV more easily. Adjustability isn’t bad for the front passenger, and space is healthy both in terms of width and height. One dimension which can’t be altered is the particularly tall dash height, and while this is largely overcome by the taller-than-average seat, it could be an issue for shorter drivers.

Storage is great, with a big bottle holder and bin in the doors, a huge cutaway below the floating centre console for storage, with an elastic strap for tying down objects. There are a further two bottle holders in the centre console and a bay with a wireless charger, too, and the split-opening armrest box is deep.

One of the more divisive points of this car’s practicality offering is the screen-based functions. Everything has been moved into the massive centre screen. There are no tactile buttons or dials for this car’s functions, with it all controlled through context menus.

To be fair, with the amount of real estate on offer, the touch elements can afford to be massive, and there is a permanent set of climate controls at the base of the screen, but adjusting these functions on the fly is never as easy without physical feedback.

The same goes for the touch-centric wheel controls. Benz says the idea with the four-zoned touch panels on the wheel is to offer unrivalled ability to control the car’s functions even when the wheel is at an angle, but it is also easy to accidentally hit various touch functions, and they can require some delicate action to use properly.

The back seat is impressive. It maintains the tall seating position of the front, letting you look down on the road as though you’re in an SUV, and the comfortable seating and surfaces continue. Legroom is particularly impressive, with leagues of space behind my own driving position. Headroom is even okay considering the descending roofline. It’s quite dark in the EQE 53 we tested thanks to its black-on-black trim, giving the illusion of a space which is smaller than it actually is.

Storage is good, too, with a big bottle holder in the door cards, quad-zone climate control, complete with a separate touch panel for rear passengers, adjustable air vents, and solid clamshell pockets on the backs of the front seats.

The EQE has a boot capacity of 430 litres which doesn’t seem enormous given the footprint of this car, and no doubt has a lot to do with its slinky aerodynamic design around the rear. There’s no ‘frunk’ either so this is a car perhaps more focused on driving and being driven in than its ability to carry things.

The Boxer 160’s 1865kg tare weight and 3510kg GVM results in a sizeable 1645kg payload rating. However, we always quote kerb weights (full tank of fuel) rather than tare weights (10 litres of fuel) to keep things consistent.

So, in this case, adding the missing 80 litres of diesel (67kg) results in a kerb weight of 1932kg, which reduces the payload by the same amount to 1578kg. That’s still almost 1.6 tonnes which is more than ample for this category. It's also rated to tow up to 2500kg of braked trailer and, based on European figures at least, can do this with a full payload.

The cargo bay provides a competitive 11.5 cubic metres of load volume and 10 sturdy load-anchorage points. Its floor, which is 3120mm long and 1870mm wide with 1420mm between the wheel housings, can  accommodate two 1165mm-square standard Aussie pallets or three 1200 x 800mm Euro pallets. There’s ample forklift access through the rear barn-doors with full 270-degree openings or sliding side doors with their big 1250mm openings.

The high roof cavity means even tall adults can stand inside with headroom to spare. It also provides a large and very useful open storage area over the driver’s cabin, which is ideal for storing ropes, straps, load-padding and any other gear a hard-working van might need.

Although the side doors and barn-doors are lined to mid-height, the cargo bay walls are unlined which leaves numerous cavities exposed that could make small items like pens, keys, phones etc disappear if they were dropped. The load floor is also unprotected.

Cabin storage options include upper and lower bins in each door, with the lower bins being wide and deep enough to hold several large bottles. There’s also a full-width map shelf that sits about forehead height for tall drivers, which is easy to access and can hold heaps of stuff.

The dashboard also has numerous storage choices including open shelves to the right of the steering column and underneath it, cup/small-bottle holders in the centre of the dash and on top a fixed clipboard with spring-loaded clamp. There’s also a glovebox with another large open storage bin below it plus even more storage, about the size of a baking tray, under the driver’s seat.

The Boxer 160 (which denotes its European horsepower or ‘PS’ rating) is available only with a 2.0 litre turbo-diesel engine and six-speed manual transmission, plus a choice of 4035mm long wheelbase or 3450mm standard wheelbase like our test vehicle, for a list price of $47,490.

It comes equipped with 15-inch steel wheels and 215/70 R15C tyres with a full-size spare, plus cargo bay bulkhead, hard-wearing rubber floor, 12-volt accessory socket and USB ports, height/reach adjustable steering wheel, two bucket seats with fold-down inboard armrests and lumbar adjustment and multimedia system with 5.0-inch touchscreen and sat-nav plus ample storage and more. There’s also AEB on the upgraded safety menu.

The only options available are three paint colours (Imperial Blue, Red and Aluminium Grey) in addition to our test vehicle’s standard Bianca White.

The EQE 53 punches out huge power, with the standard car producing 460kW/950Nm from its dual electric motor set-up, or with the 'AMG Dynamic Plus Pack', producing even higher figures of 505kW/1000Nm.

Clearly, AMG’s electric vehicles will safely outrun their dramatic combustion predecessors. In fact, with the Plus Pack, the EQE 53 is capable of moving its bulk from 0-100km/h in just 3.2 seconds. Extreme for something carrying a whopping 90.6kWh of batteries under the floor.

Enhancements include torque-vectoring all-wheel drive, all-wheel steer, adaptive dampers, and the choice of standard performance brakes or a carbon ceramic package.

The 2.0-litre Blue HDI four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine, which meets the toughest Euro 6 emissions standard using AdBlue, produces peak values of 120kW at 3500rpm and 310Nm of torque at 1500rpm.

Peugeot claims this engine was tested for more than 10,000 hours, subjected to more than 1.3 million km of drive-testing and 16,000 thermal shock cycles (cold starting and accelerations), corresponding to 15 years of intensive use. In short, it should be tough enough. Transmission is a sweet-shifting six-speed manual.

Electric vehicles appear to have the same issues as their combustion counterparts, in that they still drop in efficiency the more powerful you make them. In the case of the EQE 53, this means an average WLTP-rated consumption number between 20.3kWh/100km and 23.2kWh/100km.

'Thirsty' for an EV, although it is on par with the Porsche Taycan and still below Audi’s e-tron S.

When it comes to charging the EQE 53 can charge at a rate of 11kW on the AC standard, or a whopping 170kW on DC - allowing 180km of range to be added every 15 minutes. It also has the convenient option of a 22kW AC charger, a welcome inclusion if you intend to charge your car often at public outlets.

Total range for the 90.6kWh battery is 513km on the WLTP cycle.

Peugeot’s official combined average is a fanciful 6.4L/100km. The dash readout was claiming a more realistic 9.0L/100km when we filled the tank after 282km of testing, which included more than a third of that distance lugging its maximum payload.

However, our own figure calculated from fuel bowser and tripmeter readings came in at 9.9L, which is more than 3.0L/100km above the official figure. Even so, sub-10L economy is very efficient  for a vehicle of this size, so based on our figures you could expect an excellent real-world driving range of around 900km from its big 90-litre tank.

The way the EQE 53 drives was deeply unexpected. Just looking at this massive sedan, I would have expected it to feel burdened by its batteries, and with its length and shape, cumbersome in the corners. That wasn’t the case at all.

The EQE 53 feels remarkably coherent from behind the wheel. The seating position works well to give a nice view of the road, the steering feels a tad artificial but still direct with some AMG magic having worked its way in.

What surprised me most is how agile it feels. Once you gather some speed and attack some corners, this car shrinks. Control is excellent thanks to the massive tyres, all-wheel drive system, and all-wheel steering. It sounds like a lot of complexity, but you don’t notice any of it. Each system does its part to allow you to simply point the car where you want it to go at pretty much any speed. It is very impressive.

The ride feels supple, too, thanks to adaptive dampers, but offers plenty of control. The speed is Tesla-style violent. Put your foot to the floor in Sport or Sport+ mode and you’re thrown to the back of your seat as the car enters a state of warp. AMG says there won’t be a 63 version of this car, and I can’t imagine why you could possibly need anything faster or more capable than this 53 version. 1000Nm of torque!

This overwhelming number perhaps makes it more impressive that it’s hard to extract a squeak from the tyres. Sure there’s torque-vectoring magic at play, but even at full acceleration they hold on for dear life.

It also makes a noise. AMG is very specific about what went into making the soundscape for the EQE because in the electric era its performance can be achieved silently, and the brand knows full well its badge usually comes hand-in-hand with aural drama.

I stuck it in the stock mode and varied my driving from 'Comfort' to 'Sport+.' The sound builds as the car gains speed, but it also interacts with your accelerator and brake inputs, as well as being one of few EVs with a specific noise for regenerative braking. It sounds… odd.

There’s certainly a kind of drama to it, and to me, it’s better to have it as a way of gaining some feedback from the car. But, its artificial nature and loudness became a little too much for sustained driving in Sport + mode. I found the best balance in the more regular ‘Sport’ mode, or even toned down to ‘Balanced’ which puts it in the background.

This leaves quite a void, though. While the sound is welcome, and the throttle alarming, there’s just something missing from the usually brash AMG badge promise.

As an EV, the EQE 53 has three regen modes quite distinct from one another. Mercedes says the choice to have just three modes is deliberate, as it didn’t want to dilute the personality of the car with an overwhelming choice of regen. The three modes include: basically no regen, moderate regen, and the full regen, essentially a single-pedal driving mode. I preferred the strongest setting for efficiency's sake (plus it brakes for you as you let off!).

The EQE 53 is surprising in so many areas, and much more engaging to drive than its exterior visage might suggest. I’m impressed.

You sit up high with the huge windscreen providing a commanding view of the road ahead. Clear eye-lines to the large door mirrors (with wide-angle mirrors in their lower thirds) provide ample coverage of side and rear traffic.

Vision through the central rear-view mirror is also relatively clear compared to the cluttered views found in numerous rivals we’ve tested. The join of the barn-doors obscures the mirror’s central portion, but the driver still has a good view of what’s behind.

The fold-down inboard arm-rests combined with the door contours provide balanced support for arms and elbows to reduce strain on neck and shoulders. This support is particularly good for the driver, as it also allows your hands to rest comfortably on the steering wheel.

There’s negligible cargo bay noise thanks to the bulkhead. However, engine noise is noticeable and tyre noise can be quite intrusive, particularly at highway speeds on coarse bitumen surfaces. Cruising in top gear results in a fairly relaxed 2100rpm at 100km/h and 2300rpm at 110km/h.

The engine, with maximum torque at 1500rpm, has good all-round performance and pulling power under heavy loads, but lacks the sharper throttle response of some rivals. Even so, the manual gearshift has a light but well-defined action combined with a light clutch pedal weight.

Steering is nicely weighted and the quartet of disc brakes have plenty of bite. Handling and stability are also good regardless of load. The rear suspension tuning is commendable when running without loads on bumpy roads, providing a surprisingly smooth ride given spring rates that are designed to cope with 1.5 tonne-plus payloads.

Our only gripes are that the driver’s seat’s adjustable lumbar support presses too firmly against the spine for our liking, even on its softest setting. We also detected a couple of rattles and squeaks on bumpy roads, which sounded like they were coming from the dashboard area.

There’s no ANCAP for this vehicle segment but the Boxer would probably score well if there was thanks to the latest features like video autonomous emergency braking, forward collision warning, lane-departure warning, LED daytime running lights, reversing camera, rear parking sensors and more. There’s also driver and passenger front and side-curtain airbags.

Mercedes-Benz in Australia currently offers a range-wide five-year and unlimited kilometre warranty, a standard which is spreading to other premium brands.

We don’t know what the service schedule or running costs will look like for the EQE range yet, but expect it to be most affordable when chosen with a multi-year prepaid service plan at the time of purchase. Check back closer to its launch time to see the full details.

The Boxer is covered by Peugeot's five years/200,000km warranty and scheduled service intervals of 12 months/20,000km, whichever occurs first. Capped-price servicing applies for the first five scheduled services with a total cost of $3445 valid until June 30, 2020.