Schäfer stresses that this was no hypermiling exercise, in which professional economy drivers eke out the last drop of petrol or watt of power. “The car had lights on in the morning,” he says, “with windscreen wipers and driving in the wet, which is not positive for efficiency.”
The Vision EQXX’s lithium-ion battery is a new design developed in conjunction with the Mercedes-AMG Formula One team. It has an energy capacity of almost 100kWh, but with half the volume and 30 per cent less weight than the equivalent energy cell in the EQS luxury saloon.
Schäfer says that the technology will be picked up for new models and he reckons the next push is into new battery and electric motor technology to try and achieve parity with internal combustion engined vehicles, but one surprise was the way the design has gone down…
“It has been attracting people globally,” he says, “which is kind-of surprising. Design is definitely something we will be going to pick up in the future so you will see something not so very far from this technology.”
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