Is that it? Have we finally said goodbye to range anxiety? Is it over now?
Kind of, but also not quite. And that’s where the new Mercedes-Benz CLA gets a little complicated.
In simple terms, this is a replacement for the old CLA, and sticks to the formula – it’s a sleek, low-slung four-door car which Mercedes tries to call a coupe (look, frameless doors!) but which is really just a saloon with some attitude.
This time around, the CLA is going all-electric (although there will also, in due course, be a petrol hybrid too) and it’s boasting a potential range that could, in theory, allow you to either drive from one side of Europe to the other without recharging, or to drive around for a whole week without bothering to top up.
RM Block
In fact, the new CLA, with its 85kWh battery (a smaller battery model is also in the offing) claims a 792km one-charge range on the WLTP [Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure] official test.
Because of this range, Mercedes is already claiming that the new CLA – which will be a rival to the likes of the Tesla Model 3, the Polestar 2, and the 2026 BMW i3 Neue Klasse saloon – will be the “one-litre car for the electric age”. This claim refers back to efforts in the 2000s to create cars capable of 1.0-litres per 100km fuel economy, or 282mpg in old money. The only one that ever got close was the strictly limited VW XL1.
Our test car was the CLA 250+, which gets a rear-wheel drive 272hp motor, and a two-speed gearbox (for faster low-down acceleration). There’s also a 350+ 4MATIC four-wheel drive version with 353hp (and not much less range), and eventually a petrol-hybrid with three power outputs up to 190hp, and – oddly – front wheel drive.
The battery of this CLA is an 85kWh lithium-ion battery with silicon-oxide anodes, which increases the potential energy density and efficiency by 20 per cent compared with current designs.
Overall, thanks to the greater efficiency of the battery and the CLA’s subsystems, including a fiendishly clever air-to-air heat pump, Mercedes claims that the new CLA’s carbon footprint has shrunk by 40 per cent compared to the old model.
There’s also a built-in eco assistant function that helps you tailor your driving style to get to your destination more easily, and a regenerative braking system that can, in its strongest mode, slow the CLA at up to 3m per second/per second.
The CLA’s on-board computers, as well as being constantly updated by over-the-air software, can also teach themselves as they go, learning from your driving style and regular habits. The software can then not only recommend where you should stop for a charging top-up, but also how long you should stop for and how much charge you should take on.
All of this tech, and the new battery design, add up to a new platform for the CLA and the models which will be spun off from it. It’s called the MMA platform, and it’s said to incorporate the lessons learned from the ultra-long range EQXX concept car – the one which drove from Stuttgart to the Silverstone racetrack without stopping, and which still had enough charge left for some fast laps.
Does it all work? In a word, yes. But there’s an inevitable catch.
Okay, so our test route for our first taste of the new CLA was in Denmark, where the roads are open, well-surfaced, and very slow, with harsh enforcement of leisurely speed limits. So clearly, we weren’t pushing the CLA’s battery to any extremes. Having said that, it was baking hot – 28 degrees Celsius – and we were running the air conditioning at absolute Harry Flatters, which isn’t great for range normally.
With all that in mind, over a 260km test route, we averaged 14.4kWh/100km, bang on Mercedes’ official WLTP claim, or at least its higher-end claim, and that suggests that the CLA should, at minimum, in real-world conditions, be able to manage 600km on one charge. In milder weather, without so much air conditioning, it should go further again.
It’s a range monster, this car. Put it this way – we started our journey on 84 per cent charge, drove the equivalent of the distance from Dublin to Cork, and still had 50 per cent charge remaining at the end of the day.
So what’s the catch? Well, Mercedes has given the CLA some hugely impressive charging tech, thanks to an 800-volt on-board charger.
That allows the CLA to swallow up to 320kW at a time from a very high-speed DC charger, which means you can add more than 300km of replenished range in about 10 minutes. Which is great, until you realise that – unlike Porsche, Audi, Kia, and Hyundai, all of whom also use 800-volt charging systems – the CLA’s set-up is only compatible with 800-volt chargers, which means powerful, newer chargers and that’s something we don’t have a lot of in Ireland yet.
There is a fix on the way for this issue, and hopefully it will arrive before the CLA comes to Ireland in the middle of 2026, but right now while the CLA’s mighty range has vanquished range anxiety, its nasty cousin – charging anxiety – just found a whole new avenue of worry to explore.
At least you can have some fun while you’re waiting for an 800-volt charger to free up. Their new MB.OS software system, making its debut here in the CLA, is at least as important as the physical structure of the car, and it allows you to download the likes of Disney+ or Fortnite to while away those charging hours (and you can wirelessly connect your PlayStation or Xbox controllers and all).
The big screen dashboard – which stretches right across the dash if you order the optional passenger side screen – is impressive, and works really well despite the absence of many physical buttons (boo!), but there is surely an inherent problem in whacking a 14in screen on the passenger side, clearly visible to the driver, designed expressly for streaming movies or playing games, and then simply adding a camera that tracks the driver’s eyes and warns them if they’re getting distracted by that screen? Surely, just not having the screen at all would be a better solution for a company that prides itself on its safety record?
The rest of the interior is lovely – comfortable, and mostly well-made, with a slight issue of the back seat passenger’s legs being too perched up in the air – and the CLA is fairly practical, with more than 500 litres of storage space split between boot and the “frunk” in the nose.
It’s just not that much fun to drive, is all. Maybe that’s down to the slow, smooth, open, unchallenging Danish roads too, but on this judgment, the CLA is safe, predictable, comfortable, but never engaging. A trial on trickier, faster Irish tarmac awaits.
A range trial in colder, wetter Irish conditions also awaits, but it certainly seems as if Mercedes has stolen a big lead on the competition when it comes to range, both claimed and usable. This sleek, slick CLA slices through the air while you drive along totally unbothered by the range gauge. That in itself is quite the achievement.
