The Mercedes G-Wagon is going electric. We had the first test drive

tech.hindustantimes.com:

We may have Arnold Schwarzenegger to thank for the electric Mercedes-Benz G-Class, colloquially known as the G-Wagon.

In 2018, on stage in front of hundreds of reporters at the debut of the V8 G-Class in Detroit, Schwarzenegger pressed Dieter Zetsche, then head of Mercedes-Benz, to make a battery version of the SUV being manufactured in Graz, Austria, near Schwarzenegger's hometown. Wearing a black cowboy hat and his signature walrus mustache, Zetsche agreed—although the brass at Mercedes had not thoroughly discussed it.   

“I was actually looking at one of my guys and said, ‘Do we have a product plan for this?'” Ola Källenius, current chief executive officer of Mercedes, tells me with a laugh on Oct. 9.  He and I are in Austria, preparing to test drive the new electric G-Wagon on Schöckl Mountain, the proving ground on which all G-Wagons are tested. Källenius, a towering Swede, headed research and development at the time of Schwarzenegger's bold provocation. “The answer was, ‘I guess we have one now!'” Källenius recalls.

Five years later, I'm about to become the first American not employed by Mercedes to drive it.  

Wrapped in camouflage that declares its pre-production status, the towering rig carries all the signature elements of the Geländewagen first commissioned by the Shah of Iran in 1979: a body shaped like a brick; round headlights that glower like owl eyes; 22-inch wheels that can stomp up a staircase; and a stance high enough to clear rivers and boulders. 

But with a powerful electric motor positioned at each wheel, instant torque, a silent ride and advanced software capable of reading rough terrain, the new electric G-Wagon is in many ways even better suited to off-road driving than its internal-combustion sibling