Mercedes-Benz will gamble that cost and simplicity will trump range and recharge speeds when its EQC 400 battery-electric crossover launches in 2019. The EQC 400 launch in Sweden showed the world’s oldest car maker is finally diving into the BEV (battery electric vehicle) world with at least one foot after years of dipping its toes (with the B-Class, the SLS Electric and the smart family). Mercedes is coming to the EV world with the full weight of its history — and the full weight of everything else. While the EQC 400’s 80kW/h lithium-ion battery weighs an impressively light 650kg, Benz’s claimed weight figure for the entire SUV is an astonishing 2,425kg. With its full 505kg payload on board, that figure rises to 2,930kg, or just the mass of a single average human beneath three tons. Benz insiders admit it’s partly down to the EQC 400 sharing its MRA architecture with the Mercedes-Benz GLC, which makes it 217kg heavier than the just-launched electric Jaguar I-Pace and 35kg heavier t...

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