The assembly lines are spinning and churning out Mercedes’ first electric SUV, the EQC, for a few months now, and with the car’s inevitable road debut just around the corner getting a top safety rating from the Euro NCAP is just what the car needed.
The European safety organization announced this week the results of its latest series of tests that saw a number of cars being smashed into immovable objects. Among them, the EQC.
After putting the SUV through the usual testing procedure, Euro NCAP found the car to have 96 percent adult occupant protection and 90 percent child occupant protection ratings. For vulnerable road users and safety assist systems, the car was rated at 75 percent, still enough to land it an overall five-star rating.
Euro NCAP has in place stricter procedures and requirements than before. They include testing of pedestrian detection in darkness and obscure lighting conditions, and how the emergency lane keeping and reacts to a road edge, marked and unmarked.
Safety-wise, the EQC is fitted as standard with three-point seat belts, a host of airbags, emergency call, brake assist, and driving assistance technologies.
The car is powered by an in-house built battery located in the vehicle floor (range of up to 471 km) and two electric motors, one for each axle, that develop 408 hp and 760 Nm of torque.
In case of a crash, a cut-off capability automatically protects the battery and prevents it from catching fire.
The Mercedes-Benz EQC joins two other electric SUVs already tested by the Euro NCAP at the top of the safety food chain, the Jaguar I-Pace and Audi e-tron SUV.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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