Mercedes-Benz G 580 v G 63: Identi-g crisis

Questions about authenticity would always be asked. The G-Class, is after all, an icon. Born in the ’70s, when the only electric appliance in your life was your black-and-white television, it has survived wars, deserts and more recently, kerbed wheels in bougie parking lots. The pretender? It doesn’t have a rumbling, fuel-burning, earth-shaking V8. Neither does it have the workhorse that the six-cylinder diesel is. Instead, it runs on… television fuel. Hmm.

They’re calling it the G 580 “with EQ technology”, not the EQG like we expected. Mercedes-Benz hasn’t had the easiest time switching over to EVs, its strategy of creating entirely new model lines not sitting well with potential customers. This is a clear attempt to fix that. The name is one indication of that but the more telling sign is the fact that they’ve picked their most hallowed model line alongside the S-Class, and touched nothing on it except the drivetrain. But hey, we’re journalists. We’re born sceptics. So we’re going to put the new guy up to a few challenges to see if Merc’s claims are mere talk, or if this is the next chapter of a legend.

Challenge 1: Is it quick like a G?

Race start on the G 63 is easy enough to set up. Shift to Race mode, hold down the brake, slam the throttle to the firewall, wait for boost to build and go. It explodes off the line with violence unbecoming of a machine that seats you on the second floor. Instead of pointing straight ahead, you’re pointing at the sky for a split second as all 577bhp and 850Nm claw at the earth through those sticky tyres. The V8 snarls and the turbos hiss as they chase down the redline, and second gear even brings a slight chirrup of wheel spin. There’s no let-up in acceleration as you rip through second, and then into third when 100kmph comes up on the speedo. Let off and you get grumbling burbles from the side-mounted exhausts. The G 63 wanted to keep going, clearly. The VBOX shows that 100kmph took a mere 4.91 seconds. Feels much quicker, I can tell you that.

The G 580 has its work cut out. It makes similar power, 579bhp, but a lot more torque – some 1164Nm. The only issue is, it weighs well over 3 tonnes. There’s no Race start here but the technique is the same. Left foot on brake, right on accelerator and let go. Here too, it fires off the line but completely silent – just sheer accelerative force from the quad-motor setup laying it into the tarmac without any drama. There’s no let up: no traction control kicking in, no break in torque to change gears, nothing. It pulls like a locomotive until 100kmph. What does the VBOX say? 4.89 seconds. A mere 0.02 seconds quicker than the 63. Unexpected, because Mercedes-AMG claims a better 0-100kmph time on the G 63, although fuel quality might have affected this slightly. What I can attest to is that while both are neck-in-neck, the 63 does guarantee you the thrills. There’s nothing quite like ripping an AMG V8.

Challenge 2: Does it have drama like a G?

Visual drama? Plenty. There’s no mistaking the G 580 for anything else. It would have been idiotic to mess with the G-Class’ looks and Mercedes-Benz has not even tried. Save for the green plates and the badging. If you’re a car nerd though, you will spot minor differences – the 63 gets angrier bumpers and the Panamericana grille. The 580 gets a few tweaks for better aerodynamics including a slight bulge on the bonnet, and different fenders. But that’s about it. Park both side by side and you cannot say that one commands more visual attention than the other. Both have that X factor, in spades.

Aural drama, on the other hand… launching both made it adequately clear which one wins that test but the G 580 has a trick up its sleeve. G-Roar. You turn it on through a setting on the infotainment screen and it pumps synthesised sound through the speaker. Interestingly, it sounds very much like the burble of a V8. It gets louder in Sport mode, as it should, and gets higher pitched as you accelerate just like an engine would. I wasn’t expecting to like it, but was pleasantly surprised by how well judged it was. It sounded natural, it was not intrusive and at no point did I feel like switching it off. It genuinely made the EV experience a lot more enjoyable, by sprinkling in a little bit of what was missing, albeit artificially. It isn’t going to turn a pedestrian’s head like the V8 would, obviously, but it keeps the passengers entertained. And that’s a job well done in my books.

Challenge 3: Does it drive like a G?

The new-generation G 63 was a revelation when we drove it earlier this year. The new active suspension system transformed how it performs on the road: it ironed out bumps making it feel more settled when the surface is less than perfect, it took comfort up a couple of notches and it also significantly improved handling. Driving it back-to-back with the G 580 just reinforced all of that. Pushed to its limits in the corners, the G 63 remained composed – the wider 295-section tyres gripped the road, the active suspension worked at mitigating roll and it held firm on its line. The G 580’s limit was nowhere close to the 63’s – it wasn’t just the skinnier tyres with less sticky rubber that ran out of grip but the suspension couldn’t keep up either. It rolled and understeered, and felt all over the place while pushing as hard. Ride quality on the 580 wasn’t as composed as the 63’s. You could feel its body-on-frame characteristics more: in the way it juddered over bumps and expansion joints on the road. Objectively, the 63 is the better car to drive. That suspension system is transformative. But I’d argue that the 580 feels more like the G-Classes of yore. They were all crude, they all didn’t like corners and they all rode with a bit of a shimmy in their step. The G 580 checks all those boxes.

Challenge 4: Does it off-road like a G?

The G 63 is not something you take off-road all the time, but it is insanely capable. Decades of off-road knowhow have gone in to building this. The harshest tests, the harshest conditions. They don’t come Schockl Proved very easily. It has proper 4x4 DNA pulsing through its body-on-frame chassis. You get low range. You get three locking diffs. And combine that with V8 performance and nothing will stop it. Except maybe the low profile tyres. Those needto be swapped out before you get too far off-road.

The G 580 isn’t backing down from this fight. It has four motors, four! And that allows it that insane performance. But more than that, it allows for insane metering of torque off-road. You get a low range setting here, with actual reduction gears attached to the motors to increase torque at the wheels. And then, there’s the G turn. Push the button that used to be for the rear diff and you activate the G turn that allows it to spin on the spot. How? It rotates one bank of tyres forward, the other backward to turn on the spot like a tank. Real world use cases? Maybe to turn in a spot when you need to reverse down a trail. Or to intimidate a car that has been tailgating you. What it will be most useful for, though, is exactly the same reason why most people buy Gs. To flex. More useful to going off-road is G steer, which allows you to lock the inside wheels in a turn and tighten the turning circle. Similar to what competition-built off-roaders do with manual handbrakes. The best bit? You won’t be disturbing the wildlife down the trail either. Win win.

Challenge 5: Is it easier and cheaper to run?

Taking a G 63 to a fuel pump is a sobering experience. It might take only five minutes to tank up the 100-litre tank. But if you’re filling it up with the good stuff, say Indian Oil’s XP100, it is going to cost you a solid ₹16,000 for a full tank. The G 580? It has a 116kWh battery. Takes about 45 mins to top up from 10 to 90 per cent if you find a 200kW charger. Best of luck finding one though, they’re few and far between. A slower charger than this would take a lot longer. At home on a 22kW charger, it would take about 9 hours. But that’s the thing. You can charge it at home. And it costs next to nothing. Imagine paying for the G-Class and then spending next to nothing running it. Not like that matters at this price point.

The G 580 will force you to slow down. Be more patient. Savour some fuel station coffee. The past is loud, raw and full of character. The future is clean, smart and shockingly capable. I went into this test thinking the G 580 would be beaten hollow. That isn’t really the case. Despite being so radically different from every G that came before it, the G 580 looks and feels like a G-Class, through and through. With our journalistic scepticism out of the way, I could finally approach the more important question: which one should you buy? There’s only one answer to that. Whichever one you can get allocation for!