Buying a Mercedes EQE charging cable means buying a Type 2 to Type 2 lead. What is less settled is the onboard AC rating printed against the badge, which is 11 kW or 22 kW depending on which EQE you have. There are four answers under one name. The EQE Saloon has an 11 kW charger as standard with 22 kW on the options list. The Mercedes-AMG EQE 53 Saloon has 22 kW as standard. EQE SUVs built in 2023 and 2024 follow the Saloon, 11 kW standard and 22 kW optional. EQE SUVs from 2025 production have 22 kW as standard on every variant. Mercedes' own consumer website has not entirely kept up: a specification table still prints 11 kW while the equipment text alongside it says 22 kW.

Here is why that matters far less than it looks. Every one of those four figures is a three-phase rating. Three phases arriving at the socket is what makes 11 kW or 22 kW possible, and a British home is fed by a single phase. On a domestic supply an EQE draws 7.4 kW, whether it is an 11 kW car or a 22 kW one, whether it is a Saloon or an SUV, whether it was built in 2022 or last month. The 32A single-phase Type 2 to Type 2 cable passes all 7.4 kW, and buying a three-phase lead for a driveway spends money on capacity your electricity supply cannot fill. The 22 kW charger is a public-charging feature. It is not a home one.

So the specification that genuinely changes the buying decision is not the charger. It is where Mercedes put the socket. On both body styles the inlet is at the offside rear, the side away from the kerb on British roads, and crucially it is not at a corner. It sits mid-body, above the rear wheel arch, in roughly the position a fuel filler occupies on a combustion car. Most charge points in car parks and on forecourts were laid out for cars that carry their port at a corner, front or rear, and EQE owners report having to shuffle the car forwards or backwards in a bay to bring a mid-body socket within reach of a tethered lead. That is the same on the Saloon and on the SUV, and it is the argument for ordering a longer cable than the distance on your driveway suggests.

Every EQE takes a Type 2 to Type 2 Charging Cable for AC, with CCS pins beneath for rapid charging. Mercedes supplies a Mode 3 Type 2 lead as standard, and its length changed part way through the generation: 5 metres on cars up to the end of 2024, 7 metres from mid-2025. A used EQE is therefore quite likely to have the shorter one in the boot. No Mode 2 three-pin lead is included, at least not according to Mercedes' UK price lists, which do not list one as standard or as an option.

Battery sizes run from about 90.6 kWh to 96 kWh usable, and the times follow from that rather than from the badge. At 7.4 kW an EQE takes 13 hours 45 minutes to 14 hours 45 minutes from empty and gains 23 to 33 miles for every hour connected. The 16A cable holds it to 3.7 kW, which pushes a full charge past 27 hours and roughly halves the miles banked per hour, so no overnight tariff window comes close. On a pack this size that difference is the entire case for the 32A lead.

A Type 2 to 3-Pin cable is a reserve rather than a method. It gives an EQE 2.3 kW from a 13 amp socket, 7 to 10 miles an hour, and would need better than 44 hours to fill the battery, which nobody is going to do. What it covers is a weekend somewhere with a garage socket and nothing else, or a used EQE collected with an empty boot. It is IP67 sealed, has a Type B RCD in its control box, and its output can be dialled between 6 and 12 amps for older wiring.

One confusion worth clearing up before you order. The EQE and the E-Class plug-in hybrids are different cars that take the same lead. An E 300 e, E 400 e or E 300 de charges through a Type 2 inlet exactly as an EQE does, so the cable is physically interchangeable, but the E-Class plug-in carries roughly 25 kWh against the EQE's 90-odd and is charged in a completely different rhythm. If your car is one of those, the Mercedes E-Class charging cable page has times worked for it. The Mercedes EQS sits a class above, and the whole Mercedes charging cable range is listed in one place.

Standard first. The Type 2 to Type 2 lead is made to IEC 62196-2 and CE certified, seals to IP55, and has a working window of -30C to +50C. The three-pin lead seals to IP67 across -30C to +60C. Both come with 2 years of manufacturer's warranty. UK orders leave us free of charge on a next working day service.

Mercedes EQE Charging Times by Model

Mercedes EQE Saloon 350+ and EQE 500 4MATIC, 90.6 to 96 kWh usable, 342 to 429 miles WLTP

Maximum onboard AC charging speed: 11 kW three phase as standard, 22 kW three phase optional. A single-phase British supply brings either down to 7.4 kW.

Mercedes-AMG EQE 53 Saloon, 90.6 kWh usable from 100 kWh gross, 277 to 306 miles WLTP

Maximum onboard AC charging speed: 22 kW three phase, standard. A single-phase British supply brings that down to 7.4 kW.

Mercedes EQE SUV, all variants, 90.6 to 96 kWh usable, 260 to 378 miles WLTP

Maximum onboard AC charging speed: 22 kW three phase as standard on 2025 production onwards, 11 kW three phase on 2023 and 2024 cars unless the 22 kW option was specified. A single-phase British supply brings all of them down to 7.4 kW.

Times are calculated from usable capacity with an allowance for charging losses, and the spans cover the range of batteries in each group: 96 kWh usable on the EQE 350+ from 2024 and on the SUV 350+ and 500 4MATIC, about 90.5 to 91 kWh on the 500 4MATIC Saloon and the SUV 350 4MATIC, 90.6 kWh on the launch 350+ Saloon and on both AMG EQE 53 models. Miles per hour vary across the same spans because WLTP range does: 381 to 429 miles for the Saloon 350+, 342 to 385 for the 500 4MATIC, 277 to 306 for the AMG 53 Saloon, 372 to 378 for the SUV 350+, 337 to 342 for the SUV 350 4MATIC, 360 to 365 for the SUV 500 4MATIC and 260 to 280 for the AMG 53 SUV. Both cold weather and sustained high speeds cut this figure.