Mercedes Vision V concept is basically a private jet on wheels

Mercedes gave us a sneak peek of its “Vision V” electric van concept, complete with 65-inch TV screen in its private jet-like interior, ahead of its US unveil at Pebble Beach.

The Vision V concept was unveiled in Shanghai, China back in April, but now it has touched down in the US for the first time and we got a little time to check it out in Los Angeles.

In short, it’s a look at what kind of ultra-luxury experience Mercedes might be able to offer from its upcoming electric van, built on its VAN.EA architecture, which will underpin not just consumer vans but larger commercial vans.

Although, Mercedes repeatedly told us that this is a “grand limousine,” rather than a van.

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And while this is just a concept, it shows an idea of the kind of luxury appointments that might be available in Mercedes’ upcoming VLS – which should hit the road as early as 2026, along with a less luxury-focused VLE.

We’ve seen the VLE driving around in camouflage, but here’s a look at what the model might look like underneath the camouflage. There’s a lot here that won’t make it to production – but Mercedes assured us that the production version would look a lot more like the concept than we might think.

Mercedes Vision V exterior – it’s mighty shiny

Immediately on walking up to this thing, it’s shiny. Not unexpected from a concept car that has been babied and prepped by a whole crew of people, and the chrome doesn’t hurt either.

We were looking at the car the same day that Mercedes unveiled its new GLC EV grille design, so we got flashy grilles from both sides that day. The GLC has a heavily backlit, pixelated grille, while the Vision V has a big chrome face, though also surrounded by LED lights.

It was an extremely bright day out in California, so the lights didn’t really show up all that well in the summer sun, but we could still see them in person.

They surround not just the grille, but the headlight strip, Mercedes logo and even the wheel rims, with hundreds of individual LED elements in total. The lights had a walk-up animation, but could possibly be used for other types of communication (showing charge level on a charging car, for example).

The wheels are also heavily chromed out, though Mercedes assured us that if anything on this van doesn’t make it to production, it’ll be those chrome 24-inch wheels. You can expect something more normal from the final version of the car.

The front quarters have an aerodynamic pass-through to reduce turbulence from the wheel wells, which is a design element that I quite like to see – it’s both different and more efficient. There’s only so much you can do with aerodynamics on a big brick of a vehicle like a van, but Mercedes is giving it a go.

And on the B-pillar in the photo above you can perhaps see a screen – which we couldn’t see very well in the bright sun. The area over the B-pillar is also covered with a chrome finish, so even on the shade-side of the car, we were seeing more of our reflection than we were of the screen underneath.

On the rear end, we see more LEDs surrounding a rear window which is partially obscured by a repeating circular pattern.

You can also see the tiny side mirrors in that photo – these will be more traditional for the production model, due to regulations.

Overall, from the exterior, it doesn’t look that tremendously dissimilar from the camouflaged prototypes we’ve seen. Here’s the first one we saw last October.

Obviously there’s plenty of camouflage here, and it’s been designed in such a way as to obscure the shape of the car.

But knowing what the car looks like, we can see a lot of similarities – the grille shape could be there, the pass-throughs at the wheels seem covered-over, the swooping down rear window behind the C-pillar. The headlights certainly look different, and the overall shape of the body looks different, but the latter could be due to additional obfuscation from Mercedes’ camouflage material.

And finally, on the roof, Mercedes has covered up all that flat space with a 168-cell solar array. The company says the cells are particularly efficient, and that the system can output a total of 539 watts. Over the course of a day, averaged annually, the roof will generate 2.08kWh of energy – or up to 3.44kWh per day in a Madrid summer (which means you’d see even more in even sunnier, lower-latitude Southern California).

At Mercedes’ quoted consumption numbers of 15.5kWh per 100km/62mi, that means ~8 miles of range per day average through the year, or ~3,000 miles total/year. Which could be enough to get the kids back and forth to school, the store, or soccer practice, but beyond that it’s not a whole lot. And only if you’re parked outside – we’re willing to bet a VIP limousine probably wouldn’t spend a lot of time out of garages.

That brings us to the interior, where Mercedes will offer multiple configurations – from an 8-seat people hauler all the way down to a 4-seat “grand limousine.”

Mercedes Vision V interior – like a private jet on wheels

The configuration we saw on the Vision V was the grand limousine concept, with only two rear seats and an entirely-too-fancy interior. The front seats have a large screen, split into three sections, running across the whole width of the vehicle, with two kind of odd-looking supports running towards the windshield and then continued into the design of the hood outside the window.

But the front seat is not the main attraction here. This is a “grand limousine,” and you’re meant to be chauffeured around in it, not drive yourself around.

Heading to the back, the side door opens automatically, with a retractable running board. It reveals two rear seats with extensive legroom and luxury appointments around them. Our tour focused on the back seat, rather than the front – which can recline or lay flat, though we didn’t get a chance to test this.

On the interior, everything is covered in white Nappa leather, to the point where I felt obliged to take my shoes off before entering. The seats are very cool looking and felt comfortable for the minutes we sat in them, though those will definitely change for production due to crash safety standards.

Sitting in the rear, you really feel like you’re in your own private pod. All the glass around the vehicle is tinted, and there is glass separating the driver and passengers. That transitional glass can be made opaque for full privacy from the driver.

Rear seat comfort is the entire focus of this particular vehicle, with a lounge-like area surrounded by 42 Dolby Atmos speakers, ambient lights and 7 projectors to create a “360 degree experience” in addition to the 65-inch flatscreen TV which rises up from inside the floor of the vehicle.

The projectors supplement the flat screen, extending the screen beyond the borders of the TV. This creates the “digital experience” with “seven worlds of experience” for entertainment, relaxation, work, gaming, shopping, discovery, and karaoke.

Mercedes gave us a short demo of some of the car’s different modes, though you’ll have to trust us about the Atmos surround sound which doesn’t particularly translate into a phone’s microphone:

We didn’t get a chance to try one of the modes, “discovery,” which apparently projects the surroundings of the vehicle onto the TV and the interior windows, showing you your actual surroundings inside the car.

We think this is perhaps an overengineered solution to a problem that was already solved by… windows. They even render surroundings in stereoscopic 3D, and you can run them all day long without using any of your car’s battery power.

In addition to the large screen for movies, games, and even for meetings (there’s a camera above the screen for videoconferencing), there is some analog entertainment available. Between the rear seats, a table folds out which can be used as a chessboard, with a full chess set available in a cupboard on the wall. And there’s another cupboard with a drink set, so you can transport yourself to a different world in the traditional way.

Mercedes points out that among the sort of extremely high-end customers who might take a private jet or a helicopter for short regional trips, the back seat experience of the Vision V can offer a similar or superior experience, without having to deal with airports, fuel, emissions and so on.

What we know about other specs

Mercedes said the van would have a range of 500km by WLTP metrics – that translates to 310 miles, but once you take into account EPA mileage standard which are less lenient than WLTP, we’re guessing it would end up somewhere in the 250-270 mile range. The company recently drove 1,090km (677mi) from Stuttgart to Rome and only stopped for two 15-minute charges, which is similarly easy as the experience I’ve had on electric roadtrips.

Other than that, we got light details on anything powertrain-related. We heard about single and dual motor options, a 22kW onboard AC charger, and rear axle steering.

But, it’s a concept car. We’ll hear more about specs when the production-ready VLE and VLS get introduced next year. In keeping with Mercedes’ naming strategy, you can expect the VLE to be more family-focused, and the VLS to be more VIP-focused, though we imagine there will be different seat options available for each model (but the true VIP experience will probably only be on the VLS).

Mercedes also said it would offer combustion versions of the car, but we at Electrek don’t have any interest in that and frankly think it shouldn’t exist given that the world is burning. Besides, if people are looking for an ultra-VIP experience, why would you want a rumbling noisy engine and the need to stop for gas, when instead you could just charge the car at home and not have to deal with the hoi polloi?

Mercedes will be showing off its Vision V concept around the US in the coming weeks, starting at Monterey Car Week this week, then touring additional parts of the nation.

Electrek’s Take

People know that Americans barely buy minivans anymore, but in an even larger market for cars (and particularly for EVs), China, vans are hot and are thought of as desirable, luxury vehicles. So what is an automaker to do?

Well, it seems like the new trend is to just… call them something else and bring them here. While Mercedes does refer to this as its “VAN.EA” architecture, elsewhere it has called this concept an MPV or a grand limousine, but never the word “minivan.”

And I refer to vans as a “trend,” because it feels like there are a number of companies trying to do something similar right now – to the point where electric vans may be a new mini-trend in cars coming to market in the next few years, much like giant 3-row land yachts has been the trend of the last couple years (sigh).

Currently, the only electric consumer van in the US is the ID.Buzz, VW’s quirky (but we wish it was more quirky) resurrection of the classic VW van.

But in terms of upcoming vehicles, we’ve seen the Kia PV5 testing in the US, though haven’t heard anything about availability yet. We’ve also seen the Faraday Future FX Super One, which is a relatively transparent attempt to just bring a Chinese minivan into the US. And now, the Mercedes Vision V as well.

The similarities between Mercedes’ strategy and Faraday’s are quite interesting, too. Someone was copying someone’s notes – or, more realistically, both were copying the Chinese market’s notes, where private coachmakers are already outfitting minivans with super-luxe backseats.

And that’s the interesting question here: whether automakers will be able to convince Americans that minivans are cool. They’d certainly like to, because it means they could offer models that are popular in China to other regions around the globe. And an ultra-luxe vehicle like this would certainly offer some tasty margins.

But I think it’s going to be a tough road. Americans seem pretty solidly infected with the SUV virus – and it was introduced by the auto companies themselves, which continually refuse to offer or advertise any smaller models and have convinced us all that SUVs and trucks are the only two choices available for transportation.

This van isn’t going to fix our size problem, but it could still offer a crack in the foundation, letting Americans see that there are indeed other vehicle types available in the world, and that maybe we should get mad that we’re being denied the cool stuff the rest of the world is getting due to tariffs.

Those tariffs are only protecting an industry that stubbornly refuses to improve itself, and is going to continue to fall behind if it takes this opportunity to sit on its hands. Maybe a few foreign sensibilities could shake a little sense into us – even if they’re in the form of a big, ultra-luxe van rather than the affordable smaller vehicles I think we really need (here in the world’s largest all-time emitter).

As for the production versions, the VLE and the VLS, we’ll have to wait to see how they turn out.

The VLS won’t have to sell in large numbers, given the group it’s aiming at, and it could certainly offer a lot of benefits compared to the competition – but even the wealthy in America tend not to have personal drivers, at least not as often as wealthier Chinese consumers do, which further limits the market here.

The VLE, however, should be more interesting, as it might actually hit a segment where it could have meaningful sales. At least, if they’re able to convince Americans to buy minivans again. Wait and see.

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