Absolutetly. As a pre-disclaimer, I was previously an owner of the 580 EQS and typically sing praise for the vehicle. My main distaste for it comes from the outer appearance and that it doesn't drive like a sports vehicle.. at all.
EQB Impressions
Within the past few weeks, I watch Doug D's video on his initial impressions of the EQB, and I believe he described it as underwhelming. I wasn't quite sure what that meant until I got into the EQB.
On the outside, the appearance is not that bad minus 2 items. The door handles and the wheels. The wheels are thick, full, and not very stylized for a Mercedes and the blue streaks are nothing but a far cry of cheap and tacky showing that Mercedes still doesn't 100% understand how to present/style EVs. The door handles are classic ICE like protruding door handles. This may not be a problem for some, but on a car running for $58k having handles look like they were ripped straight from a Honda CRV doesn't quite do justice for the brand (especially when almost every other competitor has something more stylized and thought out). It's basically the first thing you interact with when getting in, and it felt like getting into a non-luxury car. The grill was far nicer than the other EQ series, and there was an appeal to the body shape.
On the inside, the rear seats suffered most. The seats and floor are high up, very high up. My knees (I'm 5' 10") were easily hitting the upper area of the seats (front passenger shoulder areas). Almost no headroom at all. You could tell the back seat was made with extra space provided by being an EV, but almost all of that space was sacrificed due to poor battery placement and the seating arrangement. It was disappointing. If that wasn't enough, the seats themselves had odd upholstery in the back raising you further when sitting. The quality around also felt "empty" or "fake". I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, as the appearance was your typically leather looking/bright colored seating with some nice designs. But when interacting with almost everything and anything, it feels off and most of the materials feel hallow. This was unlike the EQS and a stark night and day situation with any luxury car I've been in. "Fake" is the best way I can describe it. It was as if they color coated and skinned a $30k car and called it a day.
For the front seats, the steering wheel is still "much". Thick and feels complicated. Not the worst thing in the world. The stalks are very cheap as well. Straight out of a < $30k car. They lock in place, click, etc. Absolutely do not feel premium, but again may depend on taste. The center console makes 0 sense. It follows older trends that do not exist in the current EQ line up such as having a dedicated touch pad, a ton of wasted center console space that could have been used for storage and isn't. There are physical buttons under the "small" center screen (which was clearly sacrificed for cost reduction), each makes an extremely loud click sound when interacting with them as feedback to ensure you're aware they were pressed.
MBUX... so I've praised this system a lot in the past and believe it's extremely well made and scaled. I'd argue the best scalable car HMI out there. With that being said, it falls flat on small screens experience wise. It works, it works well. But the UX sucks on a small screen and menus are buried everywhere. I felt that this takes away from the EQ experience drastically.
The drive... was underwhelming. For the price point, it was sheer disappointment. The car was floaty, but not floaty enough to be luxury. The car remains to be slow. There is no real "oomph" behind it at all. That could be desirable, but definitely isn't competitive for a 50-60k vehicle. Handling was "meh" and viewing battery information was an overwhelming pain because of the way MBUX handles the smaller screens and adapts to the setup.
This all being said, we went back to back between the EQB and Mach-E, my wife immediately preferred the Mach-E. There's more style on the outside of the Mach-E, has a frunk, back seats are less.. but more.. space wise because of the arrangements, materials felt nicer, more "oomph", better drive, easier to interact with the HMI, etc etc. The Mach-E ranges in price but is generally a cheaper and sportier vehicle.
Conclusion
Overall, we concluded the EQB was an overpriced vehicle where you end up just paying a premium for the Mercedes branding. It's not generally competitive price point wise or even "worth it".
As for the EQE, it honestly just felt like a smaller EQS with sacrifices on space. The grill was nicer in black without the decals (IMO), but overall there's not much to say beyond sacrificing space for pricing. I didn't actually drive this one, so I can't comment on how that compares (my wife did).
But my guy is keeping me in the loop. I would agree with the about $120k price tag for the 900hp model. Beautiful SUV
