If you were worried that going electric would soften AMG's reputation for accelerative excellence, well, you can tell your therapist that's not a concern anymore. Even without activating launch control, flooring the accelerator at a stop will send unprepared heads back against the supple headrest hard enough to induce headaches. Hammer down at speed, and — as you'd expect from an EV with these sorts of stats — it lunges forward with an alacrity that'll astound anyone who hasn't tried, say, flooring a Lamborghini Huracan at a rolling 6,000 rpm. It's every bit as quick as you want an AMG to be.
There’s no escaping that this is a big car. There’s always a sense of considerable inertia in turns, even though the steering is direct and the suspension keeps it in check. My opportunities to test the limits of the AMG EQS in turns were hampered by damp roads and pea-soup fog, but on the several hundred turns I took winding up and down the mountains outside Palm Springs, the car felt well-planted, with just enough roll to let you know you're turning but not enough to make you queasy — the sweet spot for a gran turismo or giant sport sedan. And the brake pedals' slight softness at the top of its travel is less a bug than a feature, making them less grabby in the day-to-day driving that most owners will spend 99 percent of their time doing.
Not that you'll actually be using the calipers as much as in other AMGs; the EQS can recoup power at up to 300 kW, which Mercedes says translates to regenerative braking of 1 g. You can also choose between three levels of lift-off regen that offer very obvious differences; full-regen enables one-pedal driving, no regen lets the car sail along like it was in neutral, and the Goldilocks setting between them feels like driving a manual where you're constantly downshifting and using engine braking to help slow down.
The real adjustment, however, doesn't involve the face-smacking power or even the way it's delivered; it's the sound it makes. AMGs have long been defined by their expressive exhausts and roaring engines; their V8s sing internal-combustion symphonies that could make even the most die-hard Earth warrior get gooey inside. The AMG EQS, of course, has none of that — so Mercedes composed some noise instead. Unlike the Porsche Taycan, it's not just a remixed version of electric motor noise; it's an actual soundtrack, a composition of flowing electronic hums and whirrs designed to cram the idea that you're driving the future down your throat.
The result is that the EQS isn't as dramatic as I expect of a big AMG. Replacing the sturm und drang of the big V8 and the guttural shifts with synthetic sounds is far less satisfying than, perhaps, the Mercedes folks might have thought. Indeed, the audio track kind of detracts from the smooth, effortless power of the car that feels like magic from inside the silent cocoon.
