Audi A6 Sportback e-tron vs Mercedes-Benz EQE

The Mercedes-Benz EQE is £535 cheaper to buy. The Audi A6 Sportback e-tron is cheaper to charge, roughly £144 a year versus £176 for the Mercedes-Benz EQE, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the Mercedes-Benz EQE comes out roughly £375 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 386 miles for the Audi A6 Sportback e-tron and 281 miles for the Mercedes-Benz EQE - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Audi A6 Sportback e-tron goes roughly 105 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 21 minutes in the Audi A6 Sportback e-tron and 32 in the Mercedes-Benz EQE, so the Audi A6 Sportback e-tron loses less time at each stop. That makes the Audi A6 Sportback e-tron the stronger long-distance car.

The Audi A6 Sportback e-tron is the easier car for tight UK car parks: it is 79 mm narrower than the Mercedes-Benz EQE. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 518 mm of total clearance for the Audi A6 Sportback e-tron and about 439 mm of total clearance for the Mercedes-Benz EQE.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Audi A6 Sportback e-tron and 84% for the Mercedes-Benz EQE. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation.