While the total number of miles you can travel in today's all-electric sedans isn't bad, and most of them can be charged up to 80% in less than 30 minutes, the latest Mercedes VISION EQXX shows the world that a 1,000 km (621 mile) range on a single charge is just around the corner, and not just on a test bench but in real-life driving as the Mercedes engineed EQXX.

This was real-world testing, with the journey beginning in rainy and cold conditions, and while you can really speed in Germany, for this test, a speed of 140 km/h (87 mph) was maintained for extended sessions on the German Autobahn, while on other roads and outside of Germany, the speed was kept just below the official speed limit, so they had the wipers on, probably the lights for periods of time, and still, this amazing prototype managed to arrive in Cologne.

"We made it!" In real-world traffic circumstances, it can easily travel over 1,000 kilometers on a single battery charge and consumes only 8.7 kWh/100 km. The Mercedes-Benz VISION EQXX is the most fuel-efficient vehicle ever created. The technical initiative that underpins it is a watershed moment in the evolution of electric vehicles. It supports our strategic goal of 'Leading in Electric,'" says Mercedes-Benz Group AG Chairman of the Board of Management Ola Källenius.

The future of battery-powered EV cars isn't just about developing more powerful battery packs and fast charging stations; it's also about ensuring that the car is designed with an eye toward efficiency, such as making the EV as light as possible, even with the heavy weight of current batteries in mind, but also working on the car's aerodynamic resistance, and lowering the actual power consumption to a level where you can guarantee a long range without resorting to larger batteries.

"We've demonstrated that efficiency is the new money with our successful road trip to the south of France. This achievement also demonstrates the effectiveness of our new collaborative development method, which incorporates numerous lessons learned from the Mercedes-AMG Formula One team and its cutting-edge experience in electric powertrains. The VISION EQXX is the product of a comprehensive program that serves as a roadmap for automotive engineering in the future. Many of the new improvements are currently in production, with some of them appearing in Mercedes-next Benz's generation of modular architecture for compact and midsize vehicles. And so the adventure continues. "With the VISION EQXX, we'll continue to push the boundaries of what's possible," Markus Schäfer adds.

The VISION EQXX crossed several European borders during this one-day road trip, from Germany into Switzerland, then onto Italy, passing through Milan before arriving in Cassis, a port near Marseille in the south of France. They purposefully chose this route to ensure the prototype would encounter varying conditions along the way, to truly mimic an actual trip a client would make in this EV, driving on the highway, but also over mountain passes and even getting wet.

The Mercedes VISION EQXX has a Cd of 0.17, which allows her to reach speeds of 140 km/h with ease during the first section of this road trip. The prototype's design was narrowed at the rear, by as much as 50 mm, with a reduced track width for the rear wheels, which means the front wheels actually create a slipstream for the rear wheels to work in, and an adjustable rear diffuser deploys itself at 60 km/h.

When traveling to Italy via the famous Gotthard Tunnel, the VISION EQXX's relatively low overall weight of 1,755 kgs comes in handy to reduce power consumption when ascending a 5% gradient for about 14 kilometers. This could quickly eat up energy, but thanks to the lightweight design, this was kept to an absolute minimum. This was achieved thanks to the sustainable carbon-fiber-sugar composite material used for the upper part of the battery, which is also environmentally friendly. A significantly heavier assemblage of multiple interconnected parts is replaced with the light metal structural component.

The battery in the VISION EQXX is also a 100 kWh unit, similar to the Mercedes EQS that is currently being built for customers, but the VISION EQXX battery is 50 percent smaller and 30 percent lighter than the Mercedes EQS, and every kilogram of weight saved in an EV is crucial. The very compact battery in this prototype measures just 200 x 126 x 11 cm and weighs just 495 kilograms.

Driving an EV is all about recuperation; we already know that braking can charge the batteries, but the same can be done by going downhill, and once you've passed through the Gotthard Tunnel on your way to Italy, you'll find yourself on a long, downhill stretch of road, and thanks to the VISION EQXX's highly efficient electric powertrain, the energy regeneration is impressive, and you can even recover while braking, in this case using electric brakes.

The roof of the VISION EQXX is fitted with a total of 117 solar cells that feed the 12-volt battery that is used for the auxiliaries systems in the car, such as the navigation system, thus removing draw on the high-voltage EV battery. In the end, the engineers calculated that the use of the solar cells on the roof added another 2% to the overall range of this prototype, or about 2 miles.

The VISION EQXX gathered energy once more through recuperation just before reaching the finish line in Cassis. It completed its 1,008-kilometer road trip in 11 hours and 32 minutes, with a range of roughly 140 kilometers remained. This implies it might have continued on without recharging for a trip down the Mediterranean coast.

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