The most expensive G-Class in Mercedes history is being recalled — and the battery has nothing to do with it. Mercedes-Benz Japan has filed a recall campaign with the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism covering the electric G580 with EQ Technology. The campaign affects 513 SUVs imported into the country between September 17, 2024 and July 22, 2025. The stated cause sounds deceptively mundane: under high load, the wheel bolts may loosen.
Sounds harmless — until you remember we are talking about wheels. And the defect has nothing to do with trendy electric tech. Battery, motors, charging — none of it is involved. The Japanese regulator put it bluntly: the engineering of the wheel bolts proved inadequate. If the vehicle is driven under heavy load for an extended period, the bolts can start to back out. In the worst case, a wheel could simply detach. For the G580 this hits especially hard: the SUV is heavy, powerful and built not just for tarmac but for serious off-road duty, where chassis loads multiply many times over.
The fix Mercedes is offering is simple and free: every affected vehicle will receive redesigned wheel bolts. The Japanese arm insists no real-world cases of the defect and no accidents have been recorded so far. Formally, the recall is preventive. But the wording is anything but minor.
The hardware on the electric G-Class is lavish: four electric motors, torque vectoring at every wheel, the famous tank-turn, and assorted showroom theatrics. And all of it relies on metal that hangs on those very bolts. The takeaway is brutal in its simplicity: even the most expensive EV is still a car where the reliability of boring fundamentals matters more than any flashy on-screen mode. If a wheel is not bolted on with the proper safety margin, no electronics will save you.
In the market, the G580 plays in the top division. Its rivals are not mass-market electric crossovers but image-driven heavyweights. The combustion G-Class, the Range Rover, premium electric SUVs. The kind of buyer who picks this car is unlikely to walk away over a recall. But the aura of invincibility the G-Class has been selling for decades just took a real hit.
The electric G-Wagen can be high-tech, heavy and almost theatrical. Only trust in it is not born inside the battery. It begins with how tightly the wheels are bolted on.
