WILL THE NO-LIMIT AUTOBAHN SURVIVE IN THE EV ERA?

Germany’s autobahn is not just a freeway network, it is also one of the country’s best known cultural exports. Ask a gearhead to nominate facts about Deutschland and the lack of speed limits over much of the 8000 miles of the autobahn system is certainly high on the list—with pioneering electronic band Kraftwerk’s 23-minute musical homage to the network likely to receive a secondary mention. The prospect of traveling legally at velocities that would get you banned from driving in most parts of the world, or even wearing an orange jumpsuit and busting rocks, remains an alluring one.

Yet probably the biggest threat to high autobahn speeds comes as Germany moves rapidly into electrification. EVs are great at many things, including delivering brief hits of speed. But sustained flat-out running destroys range. Will there be any point in an unlimited autobahn when there are no longer cars able to exploit it?

Not that the reality of the autobahn always lives up to the high-speed fantasy. A quarter of the network has permanent speed limits, with many other areas subject to temporary restrictions when traffic builds. In addition, there is an advisory limit, or Richtgeschwindigkeit, of 130 km/h or 81 mph, which is in place at all times; crashes that take place at speeds above that are generally reckoned to be the responsibility of the speeding driver. Congestion and construction zones mean that average speeds on the autobahn are seldom higher than they are on more restricted highways. A decade ago I lapped Germany by autobahn in a 577-hp Mercedes-AMG S63, traveling as fast as was legally possible at almost every point. Over 1400 miles I averaged a less-than-stellar 59 mph.

In recent years the unrestricted autobahn has started to face more deeper threats. Some are political. Germany’s Green Party campaigns for the introduction of universal limits, and surveys have shown a majority of Germans are actually in favor of their imposition. Last year such restrictions received further support from a report made by Germany’s federal environmental agency, which said a 120-km/h (75-mph) limit would reduce the nation’s CO2 emissions by up to 6.7 million tons a year.

This is an attempt to preview that future. A recent trip to Germany brought the need to travel from Stuttgart to Munich and then back on subsequent days. The journey between the two capital cities of the country’s auto industry is not great—around 150 miles each way—but a significant percentage of that is on de-restricted autobahn, which is often quiet enough for 120-plus-mph cruising. The requirement for an EV capable of delivering sharp-end autobahn pace and range led to the easy decision to go to the top of the tree with a Mercedes EQS 580 4Matic sedan. This was the pre-facelift model, with power coming from a 108-kWh battery—it has subsequently been upgraded to 118 kilowatt-hours—but even with the smaller pack, it still achieved a mighty 345-mile EPA range in the States. My test car was also finished in an eye-catching shade of matte gold, which seemed ideally suited for clearing any dawdlers from the passing lane.

On previous encounters, I’ve never jelled with the EQS—and not just because of its ungainly proportions. Merc’s flagship EV is huge on technology but short on driving engagement, with the combination of silent running, light control weighting, and pillowy suspension turning it into one of those cars better defined by what it lacks than what it has. Often it feels too much like driving a sensory-deprivation chamber.

But full credit to Mercedes’s engineers—it remains supremely relaxed even when driven at higher speeds. Serious velocity took a little while to achieve thanks to heavy congestion leaving Stuttgart in the evening peak. For most of the first hour, the EQS was left to pretty much drive itself. This one lacked Merc’s optional Level 3 Drive Pilot system, but even the lane-and-distance Level 2 active cruise that comes as standard proved a fine chauffeur in gloopy stop-start traffic. Based on this creeping early progress, the dashboard’s predicted 360-mile range means it could be possible to do the entire return journey without recharging.

But I’m not here for EV hypermiling, and as traffic starts to thin on the A8 autobahn heading east, the permitted limits shown on digital matrix signs start to move upward. And then, after one of the distinctive quadruple-striped circular derestriction signs, cease to exist. My first instinct, as yours would likely be, is an exploratory foray into the EQS’s top speed. This does not take long; accelerative forces barely fade as the digital speedometer goes past the 160-km/h mark, equating to 100 mph, and—with the throttle stomped—it is still pulling strongly when the limiter arrives suddenly at an indicated 215 km/h. That’s 133 mph.

I become well acquainted with the limiter over the next couple of hours, but we never become friends. It feels like an an unnecessary restriction given how well the EQS copes with speed—serene, calm, and stable while traveling flat-out. There is a small amount of wander in the steering at top speed in the default Comfort dynamic mode, but Sport brings just the right amount of firm authority to the air springs and adaptive dampers. The cabin is almost freakishly silent. North of two miles a minute, this must be one of the quietest cars when traveling at top speed in the world. If luxury is the absence of distraction then the Mercedes EQS is very luxurious indeed.

Even on a quiet unlimited autobahn, most German drivers don’t actually choose to travel that quickly. Most travel at the 80-ish-mph pace common to the parts of Europe with speed limits, and even the ones who do push harder rarely go beyond around 120 mph, even when in cars capable of much more. That means the EQS is often the fastest car on the road during much of my journey, but I still need to keep eyes on the rear view to spot low fliers. Just over the Bavarian state border I see a set of headlights closing at huge pace and move aside to let a 992-generation 911 Turbo S pass at what looks to be something close to 200 mph.

There is also a high level of stress to driving really fast, even on the autobahn. German drivers are generally good at observation when changing lanes, and most will actively move over to ease the passage of faster traffic. But there is always the risk of not being seen, and moving at nearly 200 feet per second, the margin for error is slight if a car or truck does pull out. One pro tip from Germans is to look ahead for foreign license plates and ease off, as they likely indicate somebody less experienced at dealing with huge speed differentials.

But a better reason for slowing down on the autobahn is cost. In a conventional car, you have to pay to play; the autobahn network doesn’t have tolls for cars (although it does for trucks), but German fuel prices are painfully high. During my visit, the price for a gallon of premium gas was the equivalent of $8.70, and at 150 mph, there are very few cars that are going to be managing better than 10 mpg. So a truly flat-out run from Stuttgart to Munich—if conditions allowed—might cost more than $120 in gas alone.

But in the EQS I was soon worrying about range rather than money. Even with the need to slow frequently for other traffic, the EQS’s charge level plummeted with high-speed progress. After traveling 95 miles, the instrument display reported there was only another 65 miles left in the e-tank. When driven at the speed limiter, the battery charge was falling at more than one percent per minute, with basic math delivering the conclusion I wouldn’t actually reach Munich on a single charge without slowing down.

Rather than risk the ignominy of running out of juice, I slowed down and cruised to a charging station on the edge of the city. I’m happy to report that Germany’s EV infrastructure seems to be impressively well developed, certainly in both Stuttgart and Munich and near the autobahn itself. There were plenty of high-speed DC chargers to be found, all the ones I tried worked and relatively few cars seemed to be using them. In Munich the EQS was the only car in a 10-bay Ionity station, where it absorbed nearly 80 kilowatt-hours of energy while I dined on a stale gas station sandwich. Consumption worked out at 2.8 km/kWh, or—on my math—58.6 mpge, which shows how intrinsically efficient EVs are, even when being mercilessly thrashed. The cost was €55.50 ($60), so much less than tanking a powerful gasoline car after a similarly intense autobahn workout would be.

But in terms of time, it was much more expensive. The EQS’s ability to take up to 200 kilowatts of DC charge means it can take the battery from 10 to 80 percent in as little as 31 minutes in optimal conditions. The DC charger I used in Munich was a 150-kW unit, which took just over 50 minutes to take the battery from an indicated 15 percent to 95 percent, restoring it to almost the charge level I had started with.

That is, obviously, much longer than it would take to tank even the thirstiest gas car. With combustion, going quickly increases cost dramatically, but refueling time rises only marginally. But in an EV, it meant that more than a quarter of my door-to-door journey was spent at a charger (there wasn’t a charge option at my hotel). If I had been chasing efficiency rather than speed I could have gotten to Munich with more than a half charge remaining and potentially made it all the way to Stuttgart before needing a similar charging session.

So while it is entirely possible to travel very quickly in an EV on the autobahn, it is not a rational thing to do. For shorter journeys it might make sense to take the hit on range for speed if a trip can still be accomplished on a single charge, and ending up at a charger that can replenish the car before it needs to be used again. But for longer distances the penalties of increased consumption will always cancel out the benefit of the time saved by high speed itself, however much fun it might be to try and prove the opposite. Without either ultra high-speed charging, or swappable battery packs, it’s hard to see that changing.

Small wonder that every other EV I saw on the autobahn was traveling much more slowly than I was—with the exception of a very rapid Taycan I suspect was a Porsche development car. Plans to set a slower-but-still-fast pace on my return trip to Stuttgart were stymied when the A8 autobahn was closed by a crash, creating huge queues and then a lengthy diversion over country roads; I did get back with 55 percent charge remaining.

After my trip I spoke to a German colleague who regularly does cross-country autobahn journeys in EVs. He laughed at my unscientific flat-out approach, reckoning I was lucky not to have ended up with a flat battery at the side of the road. But he also said that fast charging means it is possible to achieve higher average speeds than those possible through hypermiling. In quiet conditions, he reckons, the optimum is normally between 130 km/h and 150 km/h (so up to 93 mph), depending on the car, then using a “splash and dash” approach to recharge, only adding 25 or 30 percent at each visit.

Something which sounds much better than drafting a semi-truck and switching off the A/C to try to boost range but not nearly as exciting as traveling flat-out. But as the number of EVs on Germany’s roads increases, I suspect that±to bring it back to Kraftwerk—there will be much less fun, fun, fun on the autobahn.

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2024-08-26T11:15:56Z dg43tfdfdgfd