Mercedes-Benz S-Class PHEV 2022 long term review
Can Merc’s limo retain benchmark status as a hybrid? It’s time to find out
*Why we’re running it: *To see if a plug-in hybrid S-Class can be as convincing an ultimate long-distance luxury saloon as its diesel ancestors
-Month 1 - Specs-
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-Life with a Mercedes S-Class PHEV: Month 1-
*What could be more frugal than a five-metre-long, 3.0-litre straight-six petrol limo? - 8 June*
Before the big Benz silently rolled up to the house, I had spent the previous few months knocking about in a Land Rover Defender. Brilliant car: I loved every minute of it, save those rather too frequent occasions spent filling its tank and emptying my wallet at the same time.
Even with just a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine, with petrol prices being what they are, it was a sizeable disincentive. It would only do 25mpg if you drove it unusually gently.
So what hope, then, for the S-Class, with its similar weight and a 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine?
Of course, the secret lies in its ability to travel a considerable distance on battery power alone (of which much more in a minute), but it’s easy to exclude that from the reckoning just by pressing the ‘battery hold’ icon on the touchscreen. And what’s astonishing is that, even if I factor in the usual optimism of the Mercedes trip computer (why are they allowed to not tell the truth?), it will still do close to 40mpg without depleting its electrical reserves in the slightest.
For that, I can thank a shape that is to the Defender as a pencil is to a house brick, but also an astonishing ability to scavenge energy in the most unlikely of circumstances. Find myself on the gentlest downhill gradient and it will have the engine off in an instant, stopping dead all those energy-sapping reciprocating masses, because it has figured out that it can maintain progress on the energy it’s recovering without troubling that in the battery. Sometimes I even see the electric range increase by a mile or two.
But actually I spend as much time as possible driving it on electricity sourced from my wallbox at home. Because it has a chunky 28.6kWh battery, that gives it a claimed range of 63 electric-only miles. Compare that with the 25 miles of the Bentley Bentayga Hybrid that I ran on this fleet earlier in the year.
Actually, and now that it has learned a bit about me, how and where I tend to drive, the Benz is estimating (and delivering) around 66 electric-only miles.
So unless I’m going a long way, this ultra-luxury, long-wheelbase limousine, with its 2.4-tonne kerb weight and more than 500bhp, has the lowest energy cost of any car that I’ve ever owned or run.
Even long journeys, like my typical trundle to London and back, will yield well over 50mpg without me recharging it in the city.
The other great bonus is that it keeps me out of service stations. Because I add another 60-plus miles of range every time I plug it in at home, it can go enormous distances without troubling a forecourt (886 miles on the last ‘tank’), which makes journeys quicker and more pleasant.
The downside is that about a third of the boot capacity is lost, which is significant. But with both Frankel offspring long since fledged and dispatched from the nest, it’s not something that troubles me with any regularity at all.
*Love it *
*What inflation?*
Extraordinary energy efficiency for such a heavy and powerful car is much appreciated with the current cost of fuel.
*Loathe it *
*Roofbox required*
The boot capacity is okay for me, but those wanting to travel across Europe with a family of four need to satisfy themselves it will do the job.
*Mileage: *4222
*Welcoming the S-Class to the fleet - 25 May 2022*
Thirty years ago, there was another S-Class Benz on this very fleet. It was an S500 of the W140 generation: silver paint, V8 motor, keys guarded very closely by one S. Cropley Esq, who remains of this parish to this day. But I was able to wrench them from his grip once, because Jaguar was launching the new Daimler Double Six and we had to do a twin test with the world’s best luxury car. Which the S-Class was.
The good news for me was the launch was in Biarritz. But it was also on Valentine’s Day, so I drove down overnight with my then girlfriend (now wife) in the passenger seat and promptly fell in love – with the car, you understand. I still regard successfully smuggling my other half onto a two-day car launch one of the greater achievements of my career.
Ever since, that car has set the standard against which all mainstream luxury cars, and S-Classes in particular, have been measured in general, at least in my mind. And while some have been quicker, quieter and doubtless even more sybaritically comfortable, none has yet managed to suffuse me with quite the same sense of supreme well-being achieved by that old W140. Cropley still gets misty eyed about it to this day, and rightly so.
So that’s the job here, of this top-of- the-range, flag-waving, all-singing, all-dancing new S-Class, which is mine for the next few months. It comes with a wheelbase almost as long as its name, denoting it to be the one that sits at the top of the pile, the numero uno, the majordomo of the S-Class household. It also has, and this is the crucial bit, a plug-in hybrid drive.
Why crucial? Because it is allegedly capable of travelling 63 miles on electrons alone. If this is true, and thanks to my trusty Pod Point home charger, this will take the financial sting out of even quite long journeys while also allowing me to waft around on a cushion of electrons, to which, I must say,
I am quite looking forward. Mercedes-Benz ordered the car and wanted it to be the range-topping model but invited me to choose its colour inside and out, plus optional extras. So wishing to make as small an additional statement compared with that already inherent in driving an S-Class, I chose standard Selenite Grey metallic paintwork with a black leather interior. To be honest, those were easy choices, but not as easy as the options. Staggeringly well equipped as it already is, I asked for and received precisely none.
What it lacks, which even Cropley’s old S500 had, is a V8. That’ll come when the AMG variant arrives on stream later this year, but the S580 packs a 3.0-litre straight six with 362bhp in conjunction with a 148bhp electric motor fed by a 28.6kWh battery, which is more than twice the capacity of that fitted to, say, a Bentley Flying Spur hybrid. Hence the enormous all-electric range.
There’s a price to be paid, of course: it weighs 2385kg, but I guess if there was a class of car where some excess avoirdupois was going to cause less trouble than others, this is probably it. More irksome is the resulting reduction in boot capacity of around 10%, or more if you want to take the charging cables in their bags along for the ride with you.
Talking of charging, the S580e also comes with another USP, at least among plug-in hybrid saloons: it will take a fast charge on the motorway at up to 60kW, which will replenish the battery from 10-80% full in just 20 minutes. I’d probably just continue using the ICE, not least as motorway electricity seems to be no cheaper than motorway petrol these days, but the facility is there if you want it.
The other really smart thing it has are dual-purpose steering-wheel paddles. You can choose to use them to change gear as usual, or you can use them to set the amount of regenerative braking you want. There are three settings: the default mode offers a small, fairly unobtrusive amount of regen, but pull the right- hand paddle and it disappears almost entirely.
Pull the left-hand one, however, and there’s so much regen you barely ever need to use the brake pedal. I quite like that, along with watching the electric range meter tick up during long downhill sections, but others will not. There’s also a whole new world waiting for me to investigate via the Mercedes Me app. When I’ve registered, I’ll be able to find the car, lock the car, start the car, pre- condition the cabin of the car and upload destinations to the car all from the comfort of my own sofa, or perhaps someone else’s.
Apparently, I’ll also be able to park it remotely. I do wonder whether this will prove a genuinely useful and valued benefit to the ownership experience, or whether I’ll discover it’s just another one of those gimmicks that seems curiously beguiling when you read about it and is used once for fun, then forgotten about forever after. But I look forward to finding out.
*Second Opinion*
There’s a great deal to like in the new S-Classes I’ve driven (this particular grey example I haven’t yet managed), but I’m particularly taken with the way they drive. For a big car packed with tech, adding weight and complexity, the S is, for me, still the standout car in this class to drive.
*Matt Prior*
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-Mercedes S-Class S580e specification-
*Specs: Price New* £113,880 *Price as tested* £113,880 *Options*
*Test Data: Engine* 2999cc straight-six petrol, 28.6kWh battery, single e-motor *Power* 510bhp at 5000rpm *Torque* 723lb ft at 2400rpm *Kerb weight* 2385kg *Top speed* 155mph *0-62mph* 5.2sec *Fuel economy* 54.3mpg, 62-mile electric range *CO2* 18g/km *Faults* None *Expenses* None
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