Welcome to Mercedes-Benz's cleverest car yet: the new electric CLA

Mercedes-Benz has a lot of clever people running around its halls, and it has deployed those clever people to build what it claims is its ‘cleverest’ car yet. Welcome to the new CLA, which kickstarts a whole family of cars for the three-pointed star, and will launch with two electric powertrain options: the rear-drive ‘250+’ and the faster, all-wheel-drive ‘350’. 

Underpinned by 800-volt architecture plugged in from the Vision EQXX concept, both will use an 85kWh battery, delivering 492 miles of range in the 250 and 479 in the 350. A 10-minute coffee break at a 350kW DC fast charger will top up over 200 miles of travel, with 80 per cent achieved with an extra 12 minutes. You may as well just get that extra flapjack.

The stats are strong too: 268bhp vs 349; 247lb ft vs 380; and 0-62mph in 6.7s vs 4.9. Both are limited to 130mph, and employ MB’s new two-speed automatic gearbox. In it, the first gear is designed specifically for steady acceleration in urban areas, while the second is meant for motorway cruising and power delivery at higher speeds, in essence, easing the load split on the transmission.

Up to four levels of regen braking are available, and as standard, you’ll get a comfort-oriented suspension setup built around a three-link front and multi-link rear axle. The steering knuckle - which connects the suspension's lower control arm with the strut - is more biased to higher camber stiffness, supposedly improving steering response and reducing road noise as a result. 

MB will also diversify the CLA lineup towards the end of the year, introducing a smaller 58kWh battery version in addition to a trio of 48-volt hybrids. Those hybrids feature a new 1.5-litre turbocharged four-pot, a tiny 1.3kWh battery and an eight-speed DCT gearbox. They’ll be good for EV-only travel at up to 62mph and will be offered with either front-wheel or all-wheel drive. Perhaps that’s when AMG will step in with a heavy dose of canards, big wings and even more power? One can only dream.

In fact, AMG might just need to step in on the style front at some point, because MB says the EV and hybrid models will look almost identical. It’s a handsome shape - albeit with a face less aggressive than the concept - and a body that’s taller, wider, longer and slipperier than its predecessor, thanks to a drag coefficient of just 0.21. The long wheelbase, short overhangs, tucked rear-end and muscular proportions are design philosophies that remain from the old car, but they’ve been decorated with as many stars as yer average galaxy.

The grille has 142 of them, which even put on a light show for you on arrival and departure, plus light signatures which take after a three-pointed star, bridged by a light bar on either side. Up to 10 alloy designs will be available from 17-19in, with optional wheel covers for more efficiency.

Inside, the CLA will adopt a floating super screen running the width of the cabin, comprising a 10.25in driver display, 14in central hub and an optional 14in passenger side screen - all coated in a gorgeous glass surface. You can tick a box for a 12.2in head-up display too. 

Other key interior bits include a panoramic roof as standard, a wireless phone charging cable, four additional USB slots and an optional 850-watt Burmester surround sound system. Lots of fancy trim elements in there too, including uses of open-pore wood and brushed aluminium, with decorative paper surfaces used for the first time in the automotive industry says Mercedes.

The pearl effect seats come in five colour choices and two styles: standard or sport, with the latter gaining side bolsters and slimmer headrests for a, er, sportier look. Can’t forget MB’s fabulous blower fans either, though we’d be unsure about picking red from the 64-colour ambient lighting since it makes them look a bit like the Eye of Sauron. Spooky, we know.

This is also the first MB car in ninety years to feature a frunk (the last being the 130), and it offers an extra 101 litres of space to complement the 405 litres at the rear. Plenty for the sort of car this is.

Moving on to the really clever tech-based stuff, the CLA gains the new fourth-gen MBUX operating system, creatively called… the MB.OS. It’s fed by a supercomputer linked directly to Merc’s Intelligent Cloud, which means over-the-air updates for features like driver assistance can be carried out easily, effectively and regularly to maintain the car’s longevity.

This is also the first car to integrate AI from both Microsoft and Google, and features a funky new Maps-based 3D navigation unit from the latter. It not only shows drivers their car and the road ahead but also nearby objects, like other road users and pedestrians, to help with situational awareness. Best sling it around the Arc de Triomphe to see how capable it really is. 

The other big addition is the MBUX Virtual Assistant, which uses the most recent version of ChatGPT combined with the Bing search engine to answer your questions. Apparently, a lot of work has gone into ensuring conversations feel less robotised and more natural, avoiding the need to repeat questions in full thanks to its short-term memory function. It also ‘recognises’ emotions and responds accordingly, changing colours to reflect your mood. That’s green for happiness, and red for the disdain that comes from stopping at a service station with no flapjacks. 

Its safety suite uses a combination of five radars, eight cameras and 12 sensors, and gets SAE Level 2-rated features like distance and steering assist, plus the conventional lane change and park assist, among others. 

Pricing for the new CLA will be revealed closer to production, which is expected to start later this year.