2025 Mercedes-Benz G580 with EQ Technology Drags Benz's Body-on-Frame Four-by-Four into the Electric Age (2024)

Okay, let's get this out of the way: "2025 G580 with EQ Technology" is a terrible name. But Mercedes is ditching its EQ branding convention (EQS, EQE, etc) and bringing back the old letter-plus-a-number scheme that everyone understands, so that's the moniker affixed to the new electric G-wagen. Luckily, Benz had the foresight to bestow the electric G with an alphanumeric that lends itself to shorthand—since there is no gas-powered G580, we can simply use that succinct handle for the EV. And from here on out, we will.

The G580 looks very similar to its internal-combustion siblings, the G550 and AMG G63, and that's by design. There are a few subtle nods to aerodynamic efficiency, but not so you'd immediately notice. The G580's most obvious visual tell is its slim exterior cargo bin at the back, which houses a charging cable where you'd expect to find the spare tire. But you can specify a spare tire instead, so even that isn't an automatic giveaway.

The G580 is still a body-on-frame SUV, and indeed the body's mounting points are the same whether a gas or electric G-wagen is coming down the assembly line. The frame itself is much different, though, since it houses a 116.0-kWh battery pack between its rails. Given that the battery precludes the ladder sections of the frame, the pack itself subs in as a stressed member and is designed accordingly, with cells spaced out to allow structural reinforcements tied to the frame.

Also buttressing torsional rigidity: the 127-pound underbody armor plate that protects just about everything between the axles. Mercedes says that this component, which is fastened with 50 bolts, is made of "an intelligent mix of materials including carbon." Which sounds like a step back from claiming a carbon-fiber skid plate, but when you peek beneath the G you'll see a familiar glossy black weave that sure looks like carbon fiber. Whatever Benz calls it, the underbody armor is designed to take severe rock-crawling abuse in the name of battery-pack preservation, because breaching the pack with a boulder would be a major harsh on your trail-ride mellow.

Benz also tested the pack in situations that combined torsional stress with rapid temperature changes because, hey, that's off-roading—you might clamber up a mountain with suspension flexing at max articulation for a mile, getting the motors and battery nice and warm while the trail tries to play Slinky with the structure, and then plunge into a cold creek and suddenly chill all the components. What happens then? Are all the seals still watertight? What if you do all that 10 times in a row? Benz feels confident that its test engineers have abused the G580 more severely and creatively than its customers will.

And in fact, some of its capabilities may be understated. The G580's rated 33.5-inch wading depth is 5.9 inches more than the gas models can manage, but Mercedes concedes that the electric G can go even deeper than that—the powertrain is thoroughly waterproofed. The weak point now: the HVAC air intake. We'd guess that in coming years, Benz will snorkel that intake and enable some really preposterous water fording.

And we can confirm (with an assist from French weather) that the G580 can handle plenty of water. Mercedes arranged a trail drive outside Montpellier, France, that involved billy-goat rock climbs, water fording, and mud. All of those off-road disciplines were more difficult than planned on account of relentless rain. We've been to off-road events where rain completely scrambled the plans, but not here—our hosts just reminded everyone that the climbs would be more treacherous, the water and mud deeper, and we forged on ahead.

We headed out on the trail in pairs, with one driver in a G550 and the other in a G580. Traditionalists, prepare for rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, because the electric G is pretty clearly the superior off-roader.

While the G550 retains its locking front, center, and rear differentials, the 579-hp quad-motor G580 requires no differentials at all, and thus the signature G-wagen diff-lock buttons on the center of the dash are relabeled to reflect the exciting possibilities of independent torque at each corner. The middle button engages low range, which might seem superfluous when you have 859 pound-feet of torque at 0 rpm. But by deploying a 2:1 gear for rock crawling, Mercedes was able to use smaller motors, with the mechanical advantage helping minimize heat buildup during off-road workouts. (The motors use extra lubrication oil to dissipate heat, Porsche 993–style, giving an assist to the coolant circuits. And no, the oil never needs to be changed.) You can switch between low range and high range on the move—while coasting in neutral—which is a neat trick, and the neutral mode allows flat-towing a G580, if you're looking for a luxe runabout to lash behind your Prevost. Besides all that, the low-range capability means that you get to say that your car has four transmissions, which ought to earn bragging rights at your neighborhood off-road park.

To the left of the transmission range selector is the button for G-steering, which allows the G580 to negotiate tight turns by dragging the inside rear tire and overdriving the opposite corner to rotate the rear end. Out on the trail, there were hairpins that required a two-point turn from the gas G that the G580 was able to pivot smartly around. To really underscore the point, Mercedes set up a dirt slalom course with the cones placed preposterously close together, and the G580 shimmied right though, requiring barely more than a car length to sneak through the gates.

Of course, even if there were only a car length of real estate—say, a dead end out on the trail—the G580 could still turn around, thanks to the third button on the dash. That one engages G-turn, which drives the motors on either side of the car in opposite directions to spin it on its axis. After engaging G-turn, you pull the steering-wheel shift paddle for the direction you want to turn and then floor the accelerator and hold the wheel pointing straight. That last part requires some mental recalibration, because it's extremely hard to resist steering a car that's turning, and if you dial in even a bit of lock the system will cancel. And you do have to hold firm to keep the wheel from moving. Follow all the rules and the G580 will spin two full rotations, which is to say one more than is strictly necessary for convenient exit of your Upper East Side parking garage.

The electric G even apes the gas-powered models' live rear axle articulation by using a De Dion rear end, a setup also employed by the eSprinter. The De Dion is sort of a hybrid of a solid rear axle and an independent setup, with the motors centrally mounted and driving the wheels via half-shafts and CV joints while a C-shaped solid axle connects both sides. So unsprung weight is minimized while retaining the articulation prized by off-roaders—one side goes up, the other side goes down. Like the other G-classes, the G580 eschews air springs, and its ride height is fixed. It still delivers a properly imperious ride.

Out on pavement, top speed is limited to 112 mph, at which speed the motors are turning 14,500 rpm. The G580 will run in rear-drive mode when possible to aid efficiency, which means that Benz had to consider the possibility that a driver might be cruising at 112 mph on the rear motors, encounter a hill, and suddenly need the dormant front motors to join the party—which means matching motor speed to road speed. So here's a fun stat: The G580's motors can spin up from 0 to 14,500 rpm in 300 milliseconds. The engineers on hand asserted that despite the surge of power required for that trick, selectively disengaging motors is still the most efficient strategy. EPA range hasn't yet been established, but Mercedes expects the G580 to see 240 miles.

The first G580 with EQ Technology will be the $168,000 Edition One, and if that sounds like too much of a bargain, we'd recommend talking to your sales representative about the Manufaktur customization program, which offers a modest selection of novel exterior colors (20,000). Because there's nothing more embarrassing than seeing your neighbor pull up in a G-wagen painted the same standard-production Obsidian Black Metallic hue that you just ordered.

In the decades since its 1979 introduction, the G-wagen mutated from a hardscrabble four-by-four into a luxury icon, but even its most ridiculous offshoots (looking at you, Maybach G650 Landaulet) were fundamentally capable machines. The electric G not only lives up to those expectations, it expands them. For instance, after experiencing G-steering's radius-carving wizardry, we asked a Mercedes engineer why the gas models couldn't do that too. He conceded that someday they probably will.