We're now into the final month with our plug-in hybrid Mercedes S-Class test car - here's what Andrew_Frankel has learned so far
I hear tales of some drivers never plugging in their PHEVs, so once the battery is flat, they’re presumably happy to drag all that extra weight around. This has always struck me as nuts, and even more so now. More than half the 8000 miles the S-Class has accrued to date have been done on home electricity. Without my Pod Point unit, it probably wouldn’t have been worth me running this car. “I say,” came the voice from beneath the panama hat. “You really have parked that car incredibly badly.
Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever simply gone onto it to find some fact or operate any one of the myriad features that it lets me access from anywhere in the world. Rover in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. It meant that my experience of Land Rover’s crucial new flagship would be topped and tailed by journeys in what I have no doubt is the best mass-produced luxury car in the world.
I would have always placed myself in the diesel camp for such cars until now. But not only is its price absurd, I think the Benz’s powertrain is simply superior, too. It’s quieter even when the ICE is on; it has even more torque, which surprised me; and while the Range Rover motor develops a little less than 350bhp, the Benz has a little more than 500bhp.
It’s an eight-hour drive from home to Lotus HQ and back, so it’s important to have the right wheels. This is a journey for which the S580e was born: not fast, not fun, but important. What would have been better? A Rolls, perhaps; but at £2 a litre, I’d be broke before I was home. The Benz topped 40mpg. For that trip and this person, it was unimprovable. AFWhat could be more frugal than a five-metre-long, 3.
Actually, and now that it has learned a bit about me, how and where I tend to drive, the Benz is estimating around 66 electric-only miles. 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 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.