Mercedes-Benz Eqs450 vs Bentley Flying Spur

What's the difference?

The EV revolution is bringing plenty of firsts, and this big electric behemoth is yet another one. Meet the EQS450, which Mercedes describes as its first "electric luxury full-size SUV with seven seats".

That is a bit of a mouthful though, right? So let’s shortcut that a bit, shall we? 

What you really need to know is that this is one of the few proper seven-seat electric SUVs on sale in Australia, so it will — a little surprisingly — end up being compared with the increasingly premium Kia and its EV9 when it launches in November.

So what does this electric answer to a high-riding S-Class bring to the table? Well, lots of luxury, of course.

In any other super car, it would seem deeply strange, wrong even, to loll (and LOL) in the back seats while a colleague blasts you around a race track at insane speeds, and not just because cars with V12 engines making 575kW and 1000Nm don’t normally have more than two seats.

The Bentley Flying Spur Speed is, of course, no ordinary car, it is a super sedan, a luxe limousine crossed with a rocket ship, and if Sir wants to get to the rooftop helipad in a spectacular hurry, then these are the back seats to be sitting in.

We flew to Japan, and the spectacular setting of the Magarigawa Club, a members-only race track carved out of the rolling hills outside Tokyo at a rumoured cost of $US2 billion, to try the back seats, and the driver’s seat, of the new and very impressive Flying Spur Speed.