Off-roading enthusiasts should be screaming for lighter batteries

The electric Mercedes-Benz G-Class I reviewed recently is an intriguing car.

Tell me that loading your new 4×4 with four big blokes would take it over its gross vehicle weight and normally I’d tell you that I’d rather drive a 40-year-old Suzuki SJ 410 for the rest of my days than give it the time of day.

And I do still think I have warmer feelings towards a small Suzuki. But give it time, think of it as a technical exercise and we will see where we end up.

Because the idea of electrically powered 4x4s is not in itself a bad one. They should work well off road – indeed, better than a mechanically driven vehicle, because of the rapidity with which electrics and electronics can respond. 

If a wheel on an ICE 4×4 is slipping, it can take a moment while slip sensors are triggered, brakes are applied or power is subdued. Time you would measure in milliseconds, it’s true, while, say, an engine spools down, but time that an electric motor directly driving a wheel doesn’t have to wait.

Likewise if you want power applied right now and, better still, if you want it applied to perhaps one wheel now, two in a second, then one, then four and so on, an electrical system could be unbeatable in terms of keeping a car moving.

There’s more, too. You may have seen cars encouraged to rock back and forth as they attempt to drive themselves out of ruts. Electric motors could do this on a whim.

Big adventure motorcycles tend to have single- or twin-cylinder engines. There are a number of reasons for this, but one is that power pulses to the wheel – especially if the crank position of the two cylinders is offset, as it usually is.

This is what gives big bikes the throbby power deliveries that is their characteristic. And in mud and sand, it can help keep a bike moving.

Effectively it bobs its power to the ground, like a tug-of-war team in sync, rather than spinning it away like a smooth, four-cylinder power delivery would. And an electric motor can be told to do this – or anything else you want.

Range, too, tends not to be a concern when you’re seriously off road. The efficiency of EVs is better at low speeds in general, because aerodynamic losses become negligible. It’s also rare to use all of the available power and it’s common to use regenerative braking.

Plus, when you get where you’re going, you have a high-voltage battery to power your grille, chainsaw or mattress pump.

The problem – and it’s a big one – is how much batteries weigh. Weight is the enemy of skipping over obstacles.

And unlike on metalled roads, where it’s the quantity of really heavy traffic rather than the weight of some cars that breaks up surfaces, on loose ground it makes a big, big difference in how much it can tear up the ground.

And if you think the Mercedes G580 is heavy, it’s not alone: other electric 4x4s are the same. The Tesla Cybertruck is around 3100kg at the kerb, the Ford F-150 Lightning similar and the GMC Hummer a gulpsome 4100kg.

It’s an area where plug-in hybrid technology (sort of like in the Jeep Wrangler 4xe, although that car’s electric motor drives through its regular transmission) could have its day.

But if there is a place in motordom where the use case is screaming for batteries to be lighter, it’s here.

Farewell to a legend

News that the Lexus LS has been canned in the UK had me scurrying to the classifieds, where there was just one original-series LS 400, a 1999 car in gold and beige inside, with some history, recent work, 180,000 miles under its wheels and even the old font on its T-reg numberplate. 

It could have been mine for four grand. As I write, it’s still there and has been joined by another one, a year newer and with a very low mileage (60,000) but more than twice the price.

I don’t know if either is a great example, but the LS 400 in principle feels like a really significant car to me.

As much so as the original Honda NSX, appearing out of the blue to thrash some of the grand old names at their game.