Mercedes is working on a ‘Vision EQXX’ electric special with a 1,000km range

'EQXX'. Not, as far as we know, how Elizabeth Queen of England signs off her texts.

No, EQXX is actually a new electric concept car inbound from Mercedes. One that threatens to laugh in the face of range anxiety, in a German accent.

Mercedes has announced that the Vision EQXX will boast “a real world range of more than 1,000 kilometres". Woah.

That’s 620 miles – enough to drive from Paris to Monte Carlo on a single charge. Or, if you prefer neon and cabaret to champagne and caviar, a trip from San Francisco to Vegas, without the ‘please recharge’ warning ever blinking on.

Mercedes had previously hinted it was working on an EV capable of getting from Beijing to Shanghai – a 750-mile schlep – without plugging in. Final range is still being honed, it seems.

To pull off such an enormous endurance, the Vision EQXX needs to be really efficient. Mercedes says the target is “a single-digit figure for kWh per 100 kilometres". That means averaging more than over 6 miles per kWh ‘at normal highway driving speeds’.

For reference, an Audi e-tron does about 2 miles per kWh. A Tesla Model 3 gets about 4 miles per kWh, and that’s among the best we’ve ever tested.

Formula One know-how is being used to develop the EQXX. Mercedes is employing a “multi-disciplinary team including experts from Mercedes-Benz’s F1 High Performance Powertrain division” to crunch the numbers, and the skunkworks is “making rapid progress towards the project’s ambitious goals".

The Vision EQXX won’t be revealed until 2022, but Mercedes says the lessons learned in this one-off concept’s gestation will be used to better the performance of the all-new Mercedes EV architectures that land in 2025 to support regular Mercedes cars, Merc vans and an all-electric fleet of AMGs.

Our advice? Practise holding it when you next need the toilet. Future Mercs are going to need to stop less often that you...