Mercedes tram will get 1,000 kilometers of autonomy and seats made of mushrooms

a mercedes detect file All-electric concept car, EQXX, which the company claims can cover around 1,000 kilometers on a single charge.

The futuristic luxury car is also made from a number of innovative, recycled and sustainable materials, including mushroom fibres, ground aloe vera and litter such as food scraps.

The company said that the Mercedes range of this concept car is based on computer simulation testing rather than actual driving.

If accurate, the EQXX would be able to drive farther on a single charge than a Toyota Prius hybrid can travel on a full tank of gasoline, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates.

The Prius can only manage 588 miles. The diesel Chevrolet Suburban has a range of approximately 946 kilometers on a 105-liter fuel tank. It’s also significantly further away than any other electric vehicle currently available in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The company said that Mercedes plans to demonstrate the car’s range in an actual test drive this spring.

Mercedes has said it wants half of its sales to be electric vehicles by 2025, and by 2030 the brand will be “ready to be fully electric”. The company referred to EQXX as a “serial production technology project”. However, it is not clear whether Mercedes intends to use all of this technology in an actual production model or whether everything is close to being viable for production.

The EQXX achieves its impressive range with a battery that’s half the size and 30% lighter than the Mercedes EQS, and the German automakers are working on powering an all-electric sedan while storing the same amount of energy, according to Mercedes.

At 1,000 km, the EQXX will provide a driving distance of about 214 km with a greater charge than the EQS based on that car’s European range estimates.

The EQXX earns those extra miles largely through efficiency, according to Mercedes. Mercedes claims the EQXX can travel more than 6 miles per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

That’s nearly three times the distance per kilowatt-hour as the Tesla Model S Long Range, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates. A kilowatt-hour is a unit of electrical energy stored in a car battery, so miles per kilowatt-hour is like km/hour for a gasoline-powered car.

However, the numbers are much lower, because a gallon of gasoline – that’s 3.78 liters – contains approximately 34 kWh of energy.

To achieve this level of efficiency, Mercedes designers focused on aerodynamics. The EQXX has a drag coefficient of just 0.17, which is noticeably more aerodynamic than a well-thrown soccer ball.

It’s also more aerodynamic than today’s Mercedes EQS which, while still very aerodynamic, has a drag coefficient of 0.20. According to Porsche, the drag coefficient is 0.33 in the Porsche 911 Turbo.

The car was also designed to be as light as possible, according to Mercedes. In addition to the relatively light battery, it has wheels made of magnesium and aluminum brakes. The EQXX suspension springs are made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic rather than metal.

The body of the EQXX includes a web-shaped subframe that is designed to have metal only where structural and crash safety is actually required. The empty spaces on the board are filled with a substance called UBQ, created by an Israeli startup.

UBQ is made from landfill waste that can include things like mixed plastic, cardboard, garden waste and even nappies, according to Mercedes-Benz. Rooftop solar panels provide supplemental power for things like car air conditioning, lights and touch screen systems, reducing the demand on battery power.

In addition to the UBQ filler in the body, the EQXX also uses sustainable materials in other parts of the vehicle. A leather-like substance made from fungi, the underground structures resemble mushroom roots, and is used in seat cushions.

Another leather substitute, made from crushed aloe vera fibers, is used elsewhere on the inside. According to Mercedes, the carpet is made entirely of bamboo fibres.

Inside, the EQXX has a massive touchscreen that extends across the entire dashboard. Unlike the ultra-wide screen on the EQS, which is actually three smaller screens under a single glass slide, the EQXX is a single screen three feet wide. To save energy, unused parts of the screen are darkened.

Mercedes engineers and designers have also tried to give the car’s audio control system more personality, with a sound that is realistic and more emotionally expressive. The system is represented by a human-shaped avatar consisting of small stars.

The figure is inspired by the young Mercedes Jellinek, daughter of Emil Jellinek, one of the first (and especially wanted) customers of Daimler, now Mercedes’ parent company.

In 1900, he ordered a new sports car model that he insisted on naming it after his daughter. The car was such a success that its name was later attached to every car made by the company.