Mercedes-Benz EQS53 vs Mercedes-Benz Marco Polo Activity

What's the difference?

It’s unquestionably fast, certainly luxurious, but I’ll be honest, I don’t think the EQS is going to be for everyone. The styling will be challenging for some and the glittery interior tech offering might be a bit much, even for the more rusted-on Benz traditionalists.

Then again, shouldn't an electrified flagship be all about challenging the status quo, trying new ideas, and bringing new fans to the brand? If anything, I think that might be what the EQS does best.

The Activity is a smooth-riding, comfortable tourer with a real touch of class, but it’s let down by the old-school entertainment system, its sometimes clunky and counter-intuitive design and engineering, and the lack of a kitchenette.

Having said that, this compact campervan is a more than adequate and classy introduction to the world of touring for those who want to dabble in the adventure-travel culture but not necessarily immerse themselves in it just yet.

We’re going to start with design, because from the outset it is a topic which simply must be addressed.

Mercedes has flipped the script when it comes to its next-generation design language worn by its dedicated range of ‘EQ’ electric cars. It follows a trend we’re seeing across the industry of larger, more amorphous vehicles which need the space to accommodate batteries, but also the aerodynamic traits to extend driving range and keep energy efficiency as high as possible.

The issue when it comes to the EQS is it essentially puts the iconic S-Class shape, refined over generations, in the bin, and replaces it with something a bit more challenging to the eye.

Gone are the angles, louvres, and deeply three-dimensional grilles, replaced by sleek rounded edges, wheels which reach to the very edges of the chassis, a blank, almost plasticky grille and a more liftback-like profile than one of a traditional sedan.

You’d better get used to it, too, because the smaller EQE is near identical in shape, a trend which will no doubt continue across other EQ models.

It’s the finer details that add character, particularly for the 53 with its AMG-leanings. The lack of shapeliness down the side makes the massive 22-inch wheels stand out more, and the rear three-quarter might be this car’s best angle, with a colour-matching spoiler flicking up off the small bootlid, and delicate badgework illustrating this car’s place in the world. Our car, which appeared in a silver shade timeless on Mercedes-Benz models, made the black AMG highlights on the front and rear bumpers shine, and some of the usual Benz shape is claimed back through the EQS’s LED light profile, both at the front and rear.

There’s no doubt it’s a step into the future, and an overall shape which is a marriage of both form and function. While looks are always subjective, I still think it may be a hard sell, even to some of the most committed fans of Mercedes design.

The Activity manages to avoid appearing too straight-up-and-down and boxy and for something based on its Vito stablemate, a van, that’s a mighty achievement. For an RV the Activity has plenty of presence without any undue bulkiness.

The pop-up roof with roof bed folds down to the roof-line quite neatly on its rear hinge for when the Activity is in motion, so it’s not an eyesore at all.

Of note is the fact the front seats swivel around to face the rear – obviously you only do that when the vehicle is stationary – and the three-seater bench at the very rear of the cabin lays flat, along with the second row, to make a double bed.

Overall, the Activity is a pleasant-looking vehicle, inside and out.

The EQS is enormous, so it’s a good thing there’s huge amounts of interior space, even for what is ostensibly an S-Class, and with its bespoke electrified underpinnings, it also scores the kinds of innovations we like to see from electric cars.

These include things like a huge cutaway under the floating dash for extra storage, which the brand has seen fit to add elastic tie-downs so your objects don’t go flying in corners!

Storage up front is otherwise excellent with decent bins in the doors with height-limited sections for bottles, a flip open tray which houses the wireless charger and a set of fold-away bottle holders, and split-opening armrest console box which is deep and features yet another set of USB-C outlets.

Adjustability is great for front passengers, but ergonomically I found something a little weird about the digital dash. For me to rest my arms and hold the wheel, I had to set it so low the top of the wheel obscured the instruments, and if I set it high enough to see the full cluster, to comfortably hold the wheel my elbows would need to float above the armrests. Weird.

It doesn’t end there for the entirely touch-based controls either. While the (admittedly very cool-looking) wheel is packed full of buttons and touch sliders, they require near-surgical precision to operate with your thumbs, distracting while you’re driving, and the enormous centre screen’s main drawback is the fact CarPlay, for example, was not designed for the buttons and functions on the far left to be a metre away from where the driver’s hand is. Again, it’s distracting to have to lean out of your seat to hit the ‘back’ button on most context menus.

I would like to tell you at this point the Mercedes-Benz menus are mercifully simple to aid you with such an overwhelming system, but this isn’t true either. For some reason, there’s a ‘vehicle settings’ menu accessed easily through the main panel, or another menu with a separate set of key functions activated by a car-shaped shortcut button on the floating console. Why? Why aren’t these menus the same? I discovered this in my attempts to use the ‘raise vehicle’ function when faced with a steep driveway. You’re going to need to use this function often in a car measuring over 5.2 metres long, so hiding it in a confusing menu is an interesting choice.

The back seat is where the EQS should shine, and in terms of space it’s stellar. I can barely touch the seat in front of me when set to my own (182cm tall) driving position. It comes with some soft pillows which attach to the headrests, the sunroof extends back there nicely while not impeding on the great headroom, and the lavish trims all continue into the doors and seat bases, too.

The drop-down armrest has a trick pop-out bottle holder in it, and there are a further two on the doors. Amenity-wise rear passengers score four adjustable air vents with two climate zones adjusted via their own touch-panel, but I was interested to see there was a lack of screens back there.

This is particularly notable as most S-Classes are bought to be driven in rather than to drive, and the screens are so much in the front, I was expecting a matching offering for rear travellers. Not so.

You also can’t adjust the rear seats at all, and unlike some EVs coming out in this space, there’s no recliner mode for the full business-class experience.

The boot is much larger than in the smaller EQE, with the EQS making use of its extended dimensions nicely. The floor is fully flat, and has a secret compartment underneath for the storage of both your included Type 2 to Type 2 public AC charging cable, and Type 2 to wall-socket converter for garage charging.

With a total space of 580 litres, the EQS comfortably consumed our entire CarsGuide luggage set with space to spare.

For starters, opening and closing the side doors is a breeze; the two sliding doors are both electric so once you have lifted the handle, the doors do the rest of the work for you.

There’s plenty of room inside – for front and rear passengers. The interior is all durable plastic, hard-wearing cloth and leather-trim (on the armrests etc) – well suited to a life of day-to-day family duties and touring fun.

Driver and front-seat passengers get adjustable armrests and some storage space – glove box, door pockets with a space each for a bottle – but, annoyingly, there is no centre console at all – but its absence is so the front seats can swivel around, as mentioned.

There are four bottle holders – two brackets, two indents – for rear passengers. Looking for more storage space? Check under the second-row seats for handy tucked-away recesses.

The media/entertainment system is not a touchscreen unit and is a real let-down; the 5.8-inch screen is small and the controls are via knobs and counter-intuitive.

Our Activity was $71,709 (as tested, with $8082 worth of optional extras on top of the base vehicle price, $63,627). 

The optional equipment included: 'Cavansite Blue' metallic paint ($1355), the aforementioned 'Driving Assistance Package' ($1345), fog lights ($309), 17-inch alloy wheels ($627), electrical sliding doors (left and right, $2264), seven seats ($1500), and a side-mounted silver awning ($682).

As standard it has two large double beds – the pop-up roof bed and the seats-folded-flat one – and you get the usual array of gear you’d expect in something like this – audio system (but no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto), daytime running lights, air con, etc – but you don’t get other stuff, such as a kitchenette, fridge or stove, that you might assume to be in something touted to be campervan-like. 

You do, however, have access to two batteries so you’re able to run your own fridge off of one battery, without laying awake at night in your roof-top bed worried about the main battery running out of juice.

In the electric era, do performance figures matter? AMG would argue a resounding ‘yes’ although I would argue the art for premium automakers like Mercedes is now in producing suspension setups that can handle the weight of batteries.

Regardless, the EQS has a dual-motor setup, capable of providing a whopping 484kW/950Nm in its standard form, or an even more incredible 560kW/1020Nm with the Dynamic Plus package. Look, you’re spending over $328,000 already, what’s an extra $8k or so to put pretty much any other four-wheeled object in your rear-vision mirror? With the Dynamic Package, a sprint time of 3.4 seconds is… brutal.

The four-wheel drive system is necessary to keep all that power under control. While some enthusiasts may be turned-off by the four-wheel steer function, I’d read on to the driving section to see why it’s not only worth having (try turning a 5.2-meter long sedan around without it) but also not as intrusive as you think it’s going to be in the corners.

This Activity has a 2.2-litre, four-cylinder turbo-diesel engine (120kW at 3800rpm and 380Nm between 1400-2400rpm) with a seven-speed automatic transmission.

Even at the official energy consumption of 23kWh/100km, the EQS’ drivetrain is essentially the electric equivalent of wielding a massive V8 under the hood. It’s not by any measure impressive, but then, with 107.8kWh of lithium batteries under the floor, it’s perhaps impressive it’s not worse than an Audi e-tron, particularly since the EQS weighs in at nearly three tonnes.

The battery is one of the largest on the market in Australia, offering the EQS a driving range of 585km on the WLTP cycle. Very impressive.

On the charging front, the EQS can charge at up to 200kW on DC thanks to an advanced cooling system, and on AC charges at 11kW in its stock form or 22kW with an optional $2490 upgrade. Again, at $328k, why wouldn’t you want the best charging system you can get for so little extra?

You can also package in a Mercedes-Benz branded wallbox for your home garage, valued at $1450 before installation costs.

To give you an idea of charging times: Expect a little over two hours (from 10 per cent) on a common 50kW DC public charger, nearly ten hours from an 11kW AC public charger, and a number not even worth mentioning from a home wall socket.

Because the Activity is a rear-wheel drive van, we didn’t venture onto anything more serious than well-maintained gravel roads, and even then we took it very gently. 

Fuel consumption is a claimed 6.3L/100km – we recorded 9.3L/100km over 150km of mostly bitumen with a smattering of easy gravel track. It has a 70-litre fuel tank.

The EQS is quite surreal to drive, and you’ll notice a whole bunch of odd things first.

Immediately the driving position will be surprising. It’s nothing like what a traditional sedan feels like. This is because you sit high in the EQS. This helps facilitate extra under-floor space for the batteries, but the way Benz puts it, this driving position is deliberately SUV-like to grant buyers the more desirable view of the road which they now (apparently) seek.

It has some oddities, as mentioned earlier, with the fixed digital instrument cluster, and the way the wheel can block it depending on your height, but on the whole I found visibility in the EQS to be pretty good, despite limitations out the distant rear window.

Sound-wise AMG has created a bespoke soundscape for its electric models, two soundscapes, in fact. One sounds like a facsimile of a distant, digitised, V8 (weird) while the other is a bit more sci-fi. I can’t decide which one I really like, but props to the brand for thinking of individual sounds for things like accelerating, regenerative braking, as well as turning the car off and on. There’s even a humming tone for when the car is idling. 

AMG says “it doesn’t work without sound” and I suppose it does add some sort of feedback to the experience which would otherwise be missing. I’d rather have it than not I suppose is the take-away here.

The acceleration is completely over-the-top in Sport or Sport+, allowing you to move such a large vehicle forward in an almost comically quick fashion. It has the sudden urge of a Tesla, but with an element of grace that follows courtesy of the adaptive suspension which, not only settles the ride, but keeps the car comfortable.

It is the suspension though which sets cars like the EQS (and even rivals from BMW) apart from the likes of Tesla. The ride in the EQS is superb, befitting the heir apparent to the S-Class throne. It’s hard to find a ride so void of issues, particularly in the everyday Comfort drive-mode. It’s not just the fact I can’t complain about brutality from this car’s oversized 22-inch wheels, but also there has clearly been delicate work conducted to control the rebound, body-roll, and jiggle which can occur as a result of moving around a near-three-tonne chunk of aluminium, steel, lithium and leather at enthusiastic speeds.

This settled ride combines gloriously with the four-wheel steer system to make the EQS a keen corner carver, despite gravity constantly working against it.

I was surprised to find the four-wheel steer system to be pretty much identical in feel to the system also employed in the EQE and new C43, in that it is unobtrusive to the overall feel of the car, only helping to add a little extra turn-in to the corners when need be.

In a vehicle as long as the EQS it’s a bit more noticeable, and requires a moment of brain-adjustment, as the car (bizarrely) goes exactly where you point it, requiring no over- or under-adjustments, the grip from the enormously capable four-wheel drive system refusing to let any shift under sensible driving conditions. 

So, it’s comfortable enough to be an S-Class, fast enough to be an AMG, but I must say there is something a bit clinical about how it attacks the road. Missing some of theAMG drama we’ve become so used to from the brand’s combustion range, perhaps?

Pretty damn good. For a big unit – 5140mm long (3200mm wheelbase), 1928mm wide, 1980mm high with a kerb weight of 2380kg – the rear-wheel drive Activity doesn't feel unwieldy on city or urban streets.

Its turning circle is 11.8m, which is better than plenty of large SUVs – and it can fairly punt along the open road, egged along by that 2.2-litre turbo-diesel.

The Activity’s seven-speed auto has a three-on-the-tree (Reverse-Neutral-Drive) and Park shifter stalk on the right-hand side of the tilt-and-reach-adjustable steering column. 

I haven’t spent a lot of time in Mercs of any sort, but once you’ve become used to the positioning of the shifter – and the fact your indicator and windscreen wiper stalks are one and the same, and to the left of the steering column – then it’s simple enough to work out how to get this Merc moving. Once you’ve used your hand to release the foot-engaged parking brake with the park-brake release handle below and to the right of the steering wheel, that is. (Exhale.)

On road, the Activity is a smooth sailor. Steering is light and responsive; the driver’s seating position is high and offers plenty of visibility out any window – as long as you don’t have the privacy curtains pulled shut. 

The driver and front passenger seats could, however, do with more under-thigh support. Our test example had five seats for travelling, with a bench seat for two or three people at the rear for when you are stationary; all seats are cloth.

Niggle: Lane-wander warning, part of the optional equipment list on our tester, is a bit touchy – it doesn’t allow for taking the race line through a corner – and sends a juddering sensation through the steering wheel to alert you.

The Activity has a maximum five-star ANCAP rating, based on crash tests of the Mercedes-Benz V-Class in 2014. There are airbags up front, but none for rear passengers, and the Activity has a reversing camera and parking sensors, front and rear, and forward collision alert as standard gear. 

Our tester also had the $1345 Driving Assistance Package ('Collision Prevention Assist', 'Blind Spot Assist', 'Lane Keeping Assist', rain-sensing wipers).

Like many electric cars, the warranty on the EQS is twofold. Firstly, there is the whole vehicle warranty, which from Mercedes-Benz is five years and unlimited kilometres, but the high-voltage battery is covered by a separate, and quite healthy, ten-year, 250,000km promise.

Benz throws in a three-year subscription to ChargeFox, offering owners free charging for the duration (to give you an idea, it cost me about $30 to charge the EQS to nearly full from 20 or so per cent).

Service intervals are surprisingly standard, at 12 months and 15,000km, and the EQS’ pre-paid service program is $1750 for three years, $2750 for four years, or $3250 for five-years, working out to about $650 a year. Far from the cheapest we’ve seen for an EV, but chump change for owners considering the up-front cost of this vehicle.

It has a three-year/200,000km warranty and a 24-hour roadside assist support package. Service intervals are scheduled for every 12 months or 25,000km.