The new Mercedes EQS is a luxury pebble with a whopping 575 miles of range

This is the new Mercedes-Benz EQS. It is a very expensive, oversized pebble masquerading as a tech-laden luxury saloon, and wearing its 450+ outfit, claims a mahoosive 575 miles of range.

That’s… more. More than the outgoing Mercedes-Benz EQS could manage (a paltry 481 miles, pah), more than the BMW iX3’s significant 500 miles, more than the new Volvo EX60 Twin Motor’s 503 miles, and a tickle more than the BMW i3’s 562-mile range.

Which makes it the rangiest electric car of them all. Mercedes said it has overhauled and updated more than a quarter of the EQS’s parts to beat the BMW, even if they’re in vastly different segments. What with one being a very smooth stone, and the other a shark.

There’s now 800-volt tech that enables a 350kW hose to add just under 200 miles of range in 10 minutes, better brake regen, (optional) steer-by-wire and a yoke-like steering wheel, brighter headlights able to scorch the retinas of puny human cars six football pitches away, and – distressingly – ‘cloud-based damper regulation’. We’ll come back to that.

There’s a slightly bigger battery – up from 118kWh to 122kWh – with new chemistry holding it all together (read: witchcraft), new motors that are more compact, and a two-speed gearbox on the back axle.

About that steering. Digitising the simple joys of turning a car means Mercedes can fit a yoke-style steering wheel, though whether such a design belongs in a Benz is a matter for debate. For its part, Merc says the new wheel opens up a better view of the dash. And the new system removes unwanted chatter and can adjust to each situation accordingly.

Speaking of which, there’s a staggering amount of assistance packed on board, including distance control, parking assistance, lane and steering assist, ‘Evasive Steering Function Plus’ which sounds like it belongs in a movie, and other such assists.

About those dampers. It’s an upgrade to Merc’s ‘Airmatic’ suspension, which uses data sent from other Mercedes-Benz drivers about road conditions to The Cloud, which in turn then relays it back to your EQS to fine tune the suspension if, say, you’re approaching a speed bump. (It’s Car-to-X, basically.)

Speaking of Merc’s new futurama, there’s Microsoft AI on board that takes the form of a virtual assistant able to call upon the internet’s vast reserves of… let’s call it ‘content’, and relay it back to you.

And while you’re consuming internet… let’s call it ‘content’, the outside world can marvel at the pebble’s lightly updated but still hugely aerodynamic looks. There’s a new bonnet, a new front light/strip treatment, new bumpers, and a new rear light strip. Merc claims a drag coefficient of 0.20.

Inside it’s what you’d expect from a top-dollar Benz: a standard-fit ‘Hyperscreen’ up front, a pair of 13.1in displays in the rear, heated seatbelts, lots of space and plush materials, and many, many options.

“Since Carl Benz filed the patent for the first automobile exactly 140 years ago, Mercedes-Benz has dedicated itself to constantly innovate and to create the world’s most desirable cars for customers,” said Merc.

UK prices haven’t yet been confirmed, but German ones have: it’ll start from €94,403.