Mercedes-Benz Vision EQS Lights Up The Night In Frankfurt

Perusing the press release Mercedes-Benz provided us on this admittedly stunning concept car, we find a myriad of highbrow phrases like organically emerging, aesthetic dynamism, and perhaps our favorite from the entire announcement, luxurious generosity and aerodynamic elegance in ideal harmony. It sounds so majestic, but here's a note to all those highbrow Mercedes PR teams. This time around, the car really speaks for itself.

The car is the Vision EQS – basically Merc's take on an electric S-Class for the distant future. It's not too distant of a future though, as this isn't a fully autonomous runabout with a morphing interior and a powertrain sourced from science fiction. In fact, Mercedes tells us the EQS utilizes a pair of electric motors for the front and rear axles, with a battery integrated into the floor between them.

Sounds like something you can get nowadays, as does the 469-horsepower (350-kilowatt) power rating. Likewise, a range of 435 miles is impressive but not absurdly so. A Tesla Model S Long Range model can almost do that now, and when the power runs out, the EQS has 350 kW charging capability to reclaim 80 percent power in less than 20 minutes.

This concept’s powertrain isn’t what has our attention. The sweeping lines are devastatingly attractive – a design language Mercedes calls one bow – but the lights literally and figuratively bring this concept to life. It starts not with that illuminated grille, but with a continuous 360-degree illuminated strip of blue that separate the two-tone black/silver finish. Mercedes says it gives the impression that the black is floating atop the silver, not unlike luxurious generosity and aerodynamic elegance in ideal harmony. We just think it looks fantastic.