The No-Stress Saloon

Mercedes’s first electric car, the yachtlike EQS, will lull away your range anxiety.

- Hannah Elliott

Here’s irony: The most technologically advanced production car Mercedes-Benz has ever made, the 2022 EQS, shines best when accomplishing the most basic of tasks.

It wasn’t the futuristic marvels of this $102,310 car—the expansive touchscreen display that covers much of the dashboard; rapid-heating, massaging, and ventilating front seats; the Burmester 3D surround sound that was so precise it had me discovering new sounds in songs I’ve sung for years.

No. What stood out was a simple fact that hit me while I was in the parking lot of a Gelson’s.

As a longtime New Yorker and devout noncook, I generally go for years between grocery store visits. It’s a particular thrill. But events on Thanksgiving Day conspired to send me scurrying to the nearest supermarket in the EQS, pushing a cart laden with last-minute Pyrex and tinfoil and the panicked mien of a host with family awaiting a feast.