The Mercedes-Benz G-Class’ last big update in 2019 gave the iconic SUV independent front suspension and a swanky new interior flush with screens — but it didn’t give it an electric powertrain. That’s been in the works for some time, and last year’s Concept EQG offered a glimpse at how the final product might look. This week, Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius confirmed to the media that the truck should hit the market before the end of 2024.
The chief executive held a roundtable with the press, where he provided a timetable for the electric SUV’s arrival, and also revealed that he took it off road last year at the automaker’s testing grounds in Graz, Austria, per Autoblog.
The G may look tough, but as our old pal Andrew Collins explained when he drove the existing internal-combustion model in 2020, Mercedes doesn’t sell a configuration that really capitalises on the chassis’ all-terrain potential. The G-Class only comes with street tires, for example.
Perhaps that will change for the electric one. After all, the EV off-roader space is still very nascent, between the Rivian duo and the Hummer EV. Those are each very different, though, and the G-Class always manages to stand out in a crowd, for better or worse.
If nothing else, I hope that when Mercedes does eventually bring the electric G to showrooms in two years, it doesn’t forget to have fun with the occasion. The Silver Arrows’ crack marketing team whipped up a ’70s sci-fi B movie promo video around the Concept’s EQG’s introduction, and it was a rousing success. The G-Class has always quietly been that weird, so it was nice to see typically serious Mercedes lean into the bit.