To many, it seems the Mercedes-Benz EQ family is a little late to the electric vehicle party, but now the brand has arrived in the age of the electric vehicle and arrived in style and in strength.

Before exploring the individual family models, perhaps an explanation of the EQ badgework. EQ is a Germanic play on the term representative of human intelligence, IQ.

EQ then, stands for ‘Electric Intelligence’ with the prefix identifying any one of 10 vehicles designed specifically to be battery powered.

The last letter in the sequence indicates the class of Mercedes-Benz so, in the case of the EQB, we have a fully electric B-Class (and while its not official, the ‘B’ stands for ‘Brilliant’ in my book).

There are two EQBs available and this being the 350 as opposed to the 250, you could be forgiven for thinking our test vehicle has a bigger battery. It doesn’t – they both have the same 66.6kWh Lithium-Ion battery judiciously placed under the floor for optimum weight and balance distribution.

The GLB – that’s the ICE-powered one – landed here as a compact SUV able to seat seven, which is quite a trick, but it works. It does have compact dimensions for the rear seat occupants, but they are still useable, useful and worthy of the brand in terms of refinement. Awesome.  

For the electrified versions of the compact SUV, Mercedes-Benz kept the seven seats in place for the more affordable rear wheel drive 250 but determined that seven-seaters were not needed at the 350’s level, so took the two seats out of it, which delivers a little more luxury space for all occupants.

Alright, so the smaller one carries more people, and doesn’t have any disadvantage in terms of battery size and largely shares the same spec? Why would one explore the 350? Good question.

First, the 350 is a 4MATIC which in Mercedes-speak means it is an all-wheel-drive, so it gives greater confidence in less than desirable weather and gives owners the freedom all all-seasons motoring.

But the all-wheel-drive doesn’t come from a super high tech system, it is actually quite basic: one electric motor on the rear axle, one electric motor on the front. All wheels are driven so that’s 4MATIC in an EQ world.

This does mean there is a greater power and torque output potential and yes, it is going to affect your kWh consumption, but not by a vast amount and whoever supplies Mercedes-Benz with batteries has clearly been told, ‘make them as good as our cars please’.

So unless you are doing silly things with your SUV like taking on Teslas at traffic lights – the 66kWh batteries of the B’s are pretty good at metering out the joules in a nice orderly fashion so as not to be an inconvenience when it comes to charging.

Having driven a few Mercedes-Benz products over the years, I have become accustomed to the handling prowess of various vehicles bearing the star.

Happily, the EQB delivers exactly as anticipated, but perhaps with a little more sophistication than we have seen in other EVs when it comes to acceleration.

It goes quickly and calmly about its business and – because the EQB is an all-electric – I do have to break with tradition and be a little technical in a Luxury Road Report.

The range of the EQB 350 is reckoned by Mercedes-Benz NZ to be 445km at 18.8kWh per 100km.    

In real world independent tests, the range is 335km at 19.9kWh per 100km.

Charge times are 34 hours on an AC 2.3kW home wall plug, 10 hours 45 minutes on an AC 7.4kW charger, 7 hrs and 15 minutes on an AC 11kW charger. For DC charging stations, a 50kW charger will see 10 to 80 percent battery charge take 63 minutes, or 29 minutes on a big 150kW charger.  

The EQB inclines more towards sophisticated practicality than outright luxury (there are other Benz’s which can do that within the EQ family), but it lacks little in terms of its equipment level.

While the features are best demonstrated at a dealership, one element still attracts many:  the benchmark MBUX driver/vehicle interface which so many manufacturers are copying these days.

Sorry everyone, Mercedes-Benz did it first, did it right and you all know it – just as it introduced a seven-seat capable compact SUV, then electrified it.