Mercedes EV drivers with a bad case of range anxiety might want to stock up on Ambien, now that the automaker is warning them not to charge their cars to full. The German brand has instructed owners of certain electric SUVs to limit charging to 80 percent because their cars could suffer what engineers term a “thermal event.”

In other words, a short circuit of the battery cells might result in a fire, and we’ve all seen enough videos of EV infernos to know they can be devastating, and extremely difficult to put out.

Read: Multiple Fires Spark Urgent Warning For VW EV Owners

Fortunately for Mercedes and its owners, this issue only affects a relatively small number of cars. Just 169, to be exact, including 100 EQB 300 4Matics and 48 EQB 350 4Matics. Both are dual-motor EVs, but the recall also concerns 21 owners of the single-motor EQB 250.

Previous Form

And while the scope of this safety campaign is small, some of you might remember that the brand previously recalled over 7,000 of the SUVs in the US early in 2025 due to a fire risk. In that case Mercedes issued the same guidance about not charging past 80 percent until the fix – a software update – was applied.

All of the newly-recalled EQBs are what Mercedes calls “early-stage” MY22-23 vehicles, the automaker claiming that batteries fitted to later EQBs are more robust, and not caught up in the recall.

It also says that while owners of the 169 EVs that are affected will probably receive dash cluster warnings if things were hotting up under the floorpan during drives, a parked EQB could light up with no warning.

So if these early EQBs have less robust batteries, Mercedes must be swapping them out for newer ones, right? Apparently not. Instead owners will get a simple software update, although it’s one that still requires a trip to a Mercedes service center early in 2026.

Short-range Missile

The EQB 350 was only rated for a miserable 227 EPA miles (366 km) with a full battery, so restricting charges to 80 percent would bring the max range down to around 180 miles (290 km).

Factor in the need to leave a safety margin at the ‘empty’ end of the battery charge indicator and you could be looking at 150 miles (242 km) between fills. Let’s hope your relatives live nearby, or that you’ve made peace with spending part of the holidays loitering at freeway charging stations.