New Mercedes EQV 2024 review: electric V-Class is classy but expensive

The target audience for the EQV is “families, VIPs and leisure active people” according to Birgit Schramm, Senior Product Marketing for Mercedes. The EQV doesn’t get the eight-seat layout offered in the V-Class, but there’s room for seven, and you can even option the ‘VIP luxury seat’ option. But it’s up front where you’ll find the biggest differences compared with the old EQV. 

Sitting in the driver’s seat, you’re met with two 12.3-inch screens that’ll be familiar to lots of Mercedes owners. The infotainment comes with the brand’s latest MBUX system, featuring the new ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice assistant. The maker says the assistant is now capable of more “dialogue and learning”; it can also determine which of the two front occupants are speaking and operate individual functions like heated seats based on this. 

Our car was fitted with Mercedes’ augmented reality systems, which operates in conjunction with the onboard navigation system. A front-mounted camera feeds back an image to the central screen, overlaid on top of the sat-nav. It’s not ideal and is often distracting more than it is helpful. The blind spot detection system also had a tendency to panic, even when there wasn’t a vehicle nearby. 

Final specification and pricing is yet to be announced for the EQV, ahead of its launch in the spring. Standard kit does look impressive on initial viewing however. There’s a new parking package, which includes active parking assist, rear-pedestrian warning and braking, plus a trailer manoeuvring assistant – though quite who will want to eat into the EQV’s range by towing a trailer remains to be seen.

The current EQV starts from £87,995, around double the price of its Stellantis rivals. We expect this new EQV will be subject to mild increase in price for 2024, which is at least accompanied by a modest uplift in technology and range.

The future of the EQV has been laid out by Mercedes’ upcoming Van.EA architecture, which is set to be introduced from 2026 and will underpin all vans from the German firm. Unlike the current V-Class and EQV MPVs, the new platform will come in two forms for ‘commercial’ or ‘premium’ use, with the former getting VAN.EA-C and the latter VAN.EA-P. 

The hope is that this will create a greater difference between the two segments, and, in the case of the EQV’s successor, provide a more refined and luxurious experience.