MERCEDES G-CLASS

G-Wagen EV is the heaviest car we've tested. Is it also the most formidable?

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An electric G-Class? Why not.

It's an ambitious idea, but Mercedes has an appetite for this sort of thing that its German rivals don't quite yet seem to have shown.

Recently the company set the 24-hour distance record for an EV, AMG's GT XX prototype travelling at an average of 186mph and charging at 950kW to cover an eventual 3405 miles at Nardò. Not bad for a day's work. In the EQS, the firm has also hastily produced what amounts to an electric S-Class, while the new CLA is now set to disrupt the junior executive EV class. Mercedes really does appear to treat electrification with a certain relish, so adapting the most backward-looking product it makes for a fossil-fuel-free future perhaps wasn't the internal hard sell you would think it was.

Alas, as Mercedes is now finding out, it's not a risk-free move. Since the 'G580 with EQ Technology' went on sale earlier this year, take-up has been about 15% that of the ICE G-Class, which is still available with characterful straight-six and V8 engines. Clearly those engines are seen as an integral part of the recipe by most of the client base. The electric G has duly been described by one unnamed company executive, according to newspaper Handelsblatt, as a "complete flop".

This doesn't stop it from being a very interesting prospect from a road-testing perspective. It is reasonable to expect that, in time, cars of all stripes will be offered with an electric powertrain, and that will include proper off-roaders with ladder-frame constructions and locking differentials (or at least a simulation of that technology). In this respect the G-Class is a pioneer, being the first mainstream car of its kind to make the jump. A year or two from now, Range Rover and Jeep will have followed suit, but the G-Class will always have been first.