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The Mercedes-Benz electric concept car drove 747 miles on a single charge of its battery pack.
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The longest-range electric car on the market is the 520-mile Lucid Air, which costs $169,000.
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The Vision EQXX is not for sale.
Mercedes-Benz’s ultra-long-distance electric car covered 747 miles without stopping to recharge, beating its previous record, the company said Thursday.
The sleek Vision EQXX drove from Stuttgart, Germany, to Silverstone in the UK. Earlier this year, Mercedes took the concept car on a drive 626 miles but estimated it could have gone considerably further.
The Vision EQXX looks ahead to a future where electric vehicles could potentially travel such great distances that people won’t have to worry about where to charge. Today, range anxiety – the fear of running out of energy before going to a charging station – is one of the the biggest worries for existing and future electric car owners.
With this latest journey, Mercedes-Benz beat every electric vehicle on sale today. Tesla’s vehicle with the longest range, the modelscan travel just over 400 miles per load, estimates The Environmental Protection Agency. Lucid Motorsa new startup, is selling a $169,000 sedan that can travel 520 miles between stops, making it the most comprehensive vehicle on the market.
In addition, Mercedes said it had left the air conditioning running for about eight hours of the 14.5-hour drive. That’s hugely impressive, considering that air conditioning can put a lot of strain on an EV’s battery pack.
Mercedes has no plans to actually sell the EQXX. It’s rather a hyper-efficient research vehicle the German automaker built to test new technology and explore the limits of the EV range.
To optimize efficiency, Mercedes has made the EQXX as light and aerodynamic as possible, as weight and drag are two of the range’s biggest enemies. Hence the teardrop shape and flowing curves.
Mercedes also developed a new battery especially for the EQXX. It is 100 kWh, about the same capacity as what is in the company EQS luxury sedan† But Mercedes managed to make the battery of the EQXX take up half the space and weigh 30% less.
The world probably doesn’t need as many 750-mile electric cars as it needs better and more abundant EV chargers† Let’s face it: While a super-advanced vehicle can drive for 14 hours without a break, we humans can’t. Anyway, Mercedes has put in a decent performance.
Read the original article Business Insider