Mercedes Benz EQS 580 4MATIC sets new Guinness world record for longest driving BEV on a single charge

Mercedes Benz EQS 580 4MATIC set a new ‘Guinness World RecordsTM title’ for the ‘Longest distance covered by a production BEV on a single charge,’ with an impressive 949.0 kilometers traveled from Bengaluru to Navi Mumbai.

The record drive included areas of built-up traffic in busy urban and sub-urban areas with road works, diversions and detours amidst the heavy monsoon rains. 

(The journey was flagged off from Sundaram Motors in Bengaluru.)

Autocar India and Mercedes-Benz India have set a new Guinness World Records title for the longest journey by an electric car on a single charge.

Data from the EQS 580 at the end of the journey showed the luxury sedan delivered an electrical power consumption of 11.36 kWh/100 km. 

This beats the previous world record of 916.74km by 32.6km, which was set in the UK in a Ford Mustang Mach E.

The remarkable feat was accomplished under challenging, real-life driving conditions amidst the Indian monsoon. The drive route covered cities like Davangere, Hubli, Belgavi, Kolhapur, Satara and Pune

(EQS' class-leading claimed range and drag co-efficient made it the obvious choice)

Flagging off from the Mercedes-Benz showroom in the early hours from the heart of Bengaluru, we experienced torrential rainfall on several stretches on our way to Navi Mumbai. This made what was a high-pressure situation to break the existing record, even more tricky. The unusually heavy monsoons also meant that road conditions were far from ideal. Thanks to ongoing repair work in several patches, we had to take several diversions and detours, which further upped the challenge.

The journey was split up in two days, and we took a pit stop at Belagavi having covered a distance of 515.2km in the first day. With the state-of-charge (SOC) at 44 percent, we resumed our journey on day 2.

(We even had to deal with a puncture in the closing stages.)

Things really intensified as we approached Navi Mumbai.

 Having crossed Lonavala, we had covered a distance of 884km, but the SOC was just 3 percent at this point.

 However, coming down the ghat section, we could take advantage of regenerative braking.

 This helped maximise the range in the closing stages as the SOC kept fluctuating – coming down from 3 percent to 1 percent at times, and going back up. 

Approximately 30km was covered like that, with the final few metres being driven with 0 percent SOC, but it was enough to get us the record, and that too by a healthy margin.

(The Mercedes EQS was piloted by Autocar India's road-tester Rahul Kakar. )

Ref: Mercedes Benz EQS 580 4MATIC sets new Guinness world record for longest driving BEV on a single charge (autocarindia)