A €55,000 refurbished EQS battery is a warning to every used luxury EV buyer

How much is a luxury electric car worth when its most expensive part has an unpublished price tag? That is the question behind the latest Mercedes EQS story, and we think it matters more than the shock value of the number.

Here is what we know. Motor.es reports that a Mercedes EQS with 300,000 km needs a battery. The brand's quote is €55,000, and the pack on offer is not new. The car's base price is above €100,000, according to the coverage. Autojournal says the car is an EQS 450+ in Croatia that arrived at the EV Clinic workshop with a battery in terminal decline. It adds that Mercedes' answers left the car's future uncertain.

The documentation is thin beyond that. We don't have a breakdown of the quote, the pack's condition or the exact reason for the failure. We'll argue from what is there, and we'll flag our own opinions as opinions.

The problem isn't the failure, it's the fog

A battery wearing out after 300,000 km is not a scandal. That is a lot of driving, and one aggregator, Voltchek, puts average EQS degradation at about 1.5% per year, based on only 12 data points. Treat that as a rough indicator, not a verdict. A pack failing at extreme mileage does not prove the technology is fragile.

What bothers us is the risk that an owner learns the price of the car's most critical component only when the car is already stuck. Combustion drivers know roughly what a replacement engine costs, and in our view they have more room to shop around. We suspect an EV owner facing a pack swap can end up with a take-it-or-leave-it quote from a single source. We think premium brands should publish indicative replacement prices by model, and say whether the pack is new, remanufactured or refurbished. At this level of the market, that is the minimum.

A refurbished pack at €55,000 is a hard sell

The detail that stings is "not new." Paying €55,000 for a part that isn't new is a tough ask, and the open questions pile up: how long will it last, and what warranty comes with it? We don't know, and the sources we have don't say.

Our view is that a refurbished pack can make sense in principle. Reuse is better than scrap, and we think the industry will need it. But the price has to reflect the product. If the refurbished pack costs this much, buyers will probably assume a new one costs far more. That uncertainty could damage residual values across the whole segment.

What used buyers should do now

Warranty is the safety net, and it is the thing to check. One secondary source, Tarantas, says Mercedes' coverage runs up to 10 years or 250,000 km for the EQS and EQE. If that is accurate, a car at 300,000 km would be beyond the distance limit. That is exactly the buyer who could face a quote like this one.

So our advice is simple:

• Treat the remaining battery warranty as part of the price, and walk away from a high-mileage car without it unless the discount is large.
• Ask for a battery state-of-health report before you sign, not after.
• Mentally reserve a sum for pack replacement. The €55,000 figure is one data point, not a rule, but it shows the order of magnitude you could be exposed to.

Verdict

This single EQS is an anecdote, and anecdotes can mislead. But in our view it exposes a structural weakness: luxury EVs are sold with sophisticated marketing and opaque out-of-warranty economics. Mercedes and its rivals can fix that with published prices, clear definitions of refurbished packs and longer coverage. Until they do, used buyers should price the battery in, and discount the car accordingly.