The Mercedes eSprinter Wants to Take Over the World
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EV skeptics fret and moan about how no electric car will ever go far enough on a charge. How it’ll always be too hard to find a charging station. How range anxiety and the dread “range rage” will conspire to ruin their motoring life, destroy their marriage, and give them hives.
We’re less certain it’s as bad as all that or that the electric vehicle option is not getting more convincing every day. Still, there’s no denying that the whole electric car business has a long way to go before it’s right for everyone. In one area, though, EVs’ usability and practical benefits have been clearly demonstrated – the realm of the urban delivery van — the so-called “last-mile” conveyance. The vehicle that drops the useless chazzerai grandma ordered while watching TV last night direct to her door a day or two later. Once her purchase passes out of a warehouse and spends some time on a big truck, maybe even an airplane or train, and perhaps on through another distribution center, it ± and the box in which it’s packed — get tossed (delicately, of course) into the back of a van that will take the package on the final leg of its journey to grandma’s house. Such deliveries, often in congested areas where noise and exhaust fumes rankle most of all, suggest the most perfect use for electric vans, quiet machines that might only drive a few hundred miles a day before returning to home base for a high-speed top-up or overnight charge.
You know the electric delivery van is a good idea because it’s not just early adopters and committed tree-huggers buying them, but major businesses with firm eyes on their bottom lines. A lifetime of lower service and maintenance costs plus cheaper than gas electric power apparently has helped many larger firms overcome reservations about EVs' typically higher purchase price. It's hard not to notice, for instance, Amazon’s electric Rivian vans scuttling along the streets of American cities and, lately, GM’s new Brightdrop electric carryalls sporting the Fed Ex logo can be spied, as can Ford Transit EVs fulfilling express delivery duty for DHL. Canoo’s Lifestyle Vehicle, funky but chic when dressed up as a delivery van, is purportedly about to start dribbling out for some high-profile assignments, while RAM’s ProMaster electric van is due for 2025. All of which brings us to the new Mercedes Benz eSprinter and a media launch for it we just attended in Newport Beach, California.
That this new Mercedes electric van is a good one should surprise no one as it is closely related to the diesel Sprinter to which it is outwardly similar. They’re even built on the same line at Mercedes’ South Carolina Sprinter factory, to avoid the stiff 25-percent tariff levied on imported commercial vehicles (the so-called “chicken tax”). That diesel version remains quite simply the class of combustion van market. Students of vanning will recall that it was the Sprinter’s arrival on American shores in 2001 that shamed two of our Big Three van makers – Ford and FCA (now Stellantis) – into dragging their van wares into the 21st century. And though the current Ford Transit and RAM ProMaster represent respectively quantum leaps forward from the Econoline, with its roots in the middle Seventies, and the RAM Van, which actually debuted even earlier in the Seventies and ran for an incredible 32 years without major change. But they still weren’t as good (or expensive) as the Sprinter, a tradition that seems likely to continue with the eSprinter.
For one thing, there’s its range, which though not rated yet, is expected to handily crush the E-Transit on the EPA-cycle. While Mercedes has not released an official figure, somewhere in the area of 260-275 miles seems likely, spokespersons said, while the electric Ford truck, depending on roof height, will go half as far, between 108 and 126 miles before its batteries are spent. The EPA reckons the Rivian EDV is good for 201 miles.
Unlike the e-Transit, with three body configurations offered by Ford, the eSprinter will debut in the U.S. in but one form: long (170”) wheelbase cargo van with a high roof, 488 cubic feet of storage capacity, with 2,624 lbs. payload, and a fixed (but removable) partition behind its only seats, the front ones. Sitting in the drivers’ chair, the view is broadly reminiscent of Sprinters past, albeit modernized concordant with the current MB lookbook, with the new corporate steering wheel and its many buttons, plus a center screen and several of the telematic niceties found in Mercedes’ cars. High-mount cameras above the rear doors handle reversing and what you see in the rearview mirror.
Paddle shifters allow the driver to easily toggle between its five different regenerative modes, varying from none to very little to a kind of a lot but not the most. A fifth, “D Auto,” calculates and selects what it deems an appropriate recuperation level for you and your van, based on its reading of surrounding traffic. Once we’d learned that it will not bring the van to a full halt as it approaches a stopped vehicle, say behind another car at a traffic light, we were more comfortable with it, though it seemed to lack the utility of a system that actually stopped the van completely. Braking in general could seem a little odd, a result of the system toggling by its own secret formula between regenerative braking provided by the motor and the hydraulic braking system, which made at first for a less than satisfying pedal feel, though presumably one will get used to it.
Three drive modes are available: “Comfort” which lets the van’s driver access all available torque and performance (one colleague claimed an unofficial iPhone 0-60 time of 14 seconds;) “Eco” which cuts engine power for greater range; and a “Maximum Range” setting which reduces engine output while preventing the use of certain electricity-sucking features like air conditioning, to further increase range. In keeping with its mission, the truck is governed to go no faster than 75 miles per hour in its most powerful Comfort setting (less in other modes) which, if we are to be honest, is good enough for most anticipated uses.
Surely and steadily, Mercedes’ grip on telematics, safety assists and on-board software has improved and the eSprinter benefits from it. Notably, its “Navigation with Electric Intelligence” feature, optimizes routes to suggested destinations with attention to traffic and topography. While calling out charging stations along the route, (and a map that inexplicably pictures all gas stations) it will also calculate and suggest alternate charging strategies to favor either speedy arrival or a fuller charge upon arrival. MBUX (an acronym for the Mercedes Benz User Experience) and other cloud-based goodies, offered on Mercedes passenger cars and offering several remote features, are for the first time available to Sprinter buyers.
Equipped with a single permanent-magnet synchronous motor that tips the scale at a wee 286 pounds, the eSprinter is available in power levels of either 100 or 150 kilowatts of peak output, delivering up to 295 lb.-ft of torque for at least 30 seconds. Nestled in a handsome aluminum casting beneath the floor that is easily accessed, the motor and electric axle – the rearmost element of a new three-part modular system -- drive the rear wheels only. (A two-motor 4x4 seems to us like an inevitable follow-up in years to come.) A battery pack, with 1,007 lbs. and 113 kW of lithio-ferro phosphate-filled batteries, liquid-cooled, and celebrated by Mercedes’ for their lack of cobalt and nickel, makes for a second module. A third, up front, under the hood, carries all the high-voltage componentry, and obviates any frunk, not that the eSprinter lacks for room.
Wall charging is an option, though high-speed DC charging at speeds of up to 115 kW is possible, with an unexceptional 42 minutes the minimum needed to deliver an 80-percent charge from 10 percent. Enrollment in Mercedes Me Charge program, operated in conjunction with ChargePoint, gives eSprinter drivers access to some 85,000 charging points nationally, integrating sites belonging to ChargePoint, ElectrifyAmerica, and EVGo in one account.
Mercedes says it plans to “lead in electric” and its sales targets are ambitious: 50 percent of electric van sales worldwide by 2030. Ready to be ordered now dealers now, eSprinters start at $71,866, with leasing options available, including a 36-month lease at $998 a month, with $6,386 down. Though we’d say it’s worth the money, pricing is stiff, to be sure. Against that, the price includes all annual service for four years or 100,000 miles, with an extended battery warranty to 185,000/eight years also available.
No mistaking it, the eSprinter is a van, a big, 6700-pound one, but it’s the nicest one we know of currently, a premium workhorse that is visibly blessed with better materials and higher quality construction than any competitor we can think of. The rear cargo hold is nicely outfitted with all manner of quality tie-downs and anchors. Towing up to 4,277 lbs is permitted. Driving is remarkably easy for such a big thing, the sense of supreme quiet abetted by a body structure that follows the path less taken by not rattling its way down the road as most vans tend to. It rides and steers well, too, its battery weight sited for a low center of gravity and only coming into focus as ride deteriorates in a certain situation that requires turning sharply while descending and compressing, such as leaving a hotel parking lot.
Overall, the eSprinter testifies to progress made as the world ramps up for a substantially electric fleet and in van life generally. We can only imagine what the upfitters, overlanders and back-to-nature types will do when they get their hands on it and we also look forward to the 15-seat window version that may one day come. We wouldn’t mind eSprinters in other shapes and sizes here in America and smaller Mercedes vans would be nice, too. But until then, it’s time for deliveries and the eSprinter delivers.
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