The new CLA brings Mercedes’ all-electric know-how to a new market sector

The new Mercedes-Benz CLA has an ultralight touch. It’s not just the way the steering wheel twirls this way and that with only the slightest input, with a vague sense of disconnection from the direction the wheels are pointing, but the way the electric car’s systems are set up to maximise efficiency in every conceivable way. The car scythes through the air like a hot knife through butter, with features like intelligent regeneration working overtime to eke out every last kWh from the battery.

With a generous 85 kWh on hand, Mercedes is claiming a headline maximum range of 792 km (492 miles). That’s impressive, even once you’ve shaved away the necessary percentage for real world usage and consumption. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it’s sufficient to completely banish the spectre of range anxiety.

At the CLA’s international launch in Copenhagen, I was given a pair of representative samples from the range – the 250+ and 350 models – and two long looping routes that took in everything from twisting country lanes, fast-moving motorways and the coastal road that runs north out of the city, flanked by elegantly appointed villas old and new.

Despite four hours of driving, I failed to make much of a dent in the Mercedes’s mighty battery pack. I learned how to tighten up the steering – only marginally, mind – but a not unpleasant feeling of weightlessness persisted. Aerodynamic optimising includes shutters on the radiator, retractable door handles, special wheels and a full underbody tray to keep the airflow as smooth as possible. Heating and cooling is assisted by waste heat from the e-drive, hoovering up ‘free’ thermal energy to create a system that uses just a third of the energy than its rivals.

In addition to a preview of next year’s CLA Shooting Brake variant, Merc had a clutch of experts on hand to talk through the car’s many innovations. A lot of its tech and trickery comes from the EQ series (hence the 'with EQ technology' appellation), which are being quietly phased out.

So is the CLA a form of corporate mea culpa for the perceived failings of these all-electric predecessors? The EQE, EQS and accompanying SUVs were good but bloated EV-only models that functioned mainly as an unnecessary diversion from the company's historic and well-established model line-up.

We've had CLAs before, of course, and they've been thoroughly conventional ICE cars, both petrol and diesel. Popular, compact and premium, the CLA is effectively the contemporary iteration of the Mercedes 190, the original 'baby Benz' that debuted in 1982 and marked the first time the company deviated from the large, luxurious sedans and saloons to cater for a more mass-market approach.

Mercedes is pushing efficiency, range and technology with this new car, parcelling up a decade's worth of engineering know-how and siphoned it into a single tech showcase. Historically, the flagship S-Class was the beneficiary of MB's long litany of tech innovations: things like ABS brakes, radar-controlled cruise, semi-autonomous driving, etc. etc.; all made their debut at the top and filtered down through the range.

The CLA is a tacit acknowledgement that even though EV innovation is extremely important, it's not necessarily the kind of tech that premium buyers want to be funding. Hence a more ground up approach.

The interior is another quiet U-turn. Yes, there are plenty of screens – up to three – but they’re joined by some physical buttons and manually swivelling air vents. This tacit acknowledgement that the mighty dash-spanning ‘hyperscreen’ that debuted on the EQS might have been a step too far. Instead, we get a slightly more muted 'superscreen', which can still be made practically as broad as the car should you desire. Overall, however, the CLA pushes a more ‘phygital’ approach to design, with elevated interior quality and tactile surfaces, especially in the special launch edition cars, vying for attention with the screens.

Silke Noack, who led the Colour and Trim team for the new CLA, stresses that the new model represents a path between digital and analogue. ‘You need the superscreen [for information], but you also need the feel from the vents, from the seat controls on the doors,’ she says, ‘it’s about bringing a balance but with a luxury feel.’ To that end, the CLA features surfaces like open pore wood and timber threaded through with aluminium, a la Riva Yachts.

The CLA successfully walks a line between the demands of the digital natives and Mercedes’ more conservative, older buyers who might have been put off by the blank expanse of the original hyperscreen. The instrumentation and mapping are smooth and concise. The map screen is in danger of getting a little cluttered, although almost all automotive UIs improve with familiarity.

Noack is especially pleased with the ‘paper’ trim shown here on the centre console and the doors. This white surface, etched with lines inspired by a freshly raked Zen Garden, is made from 50% recycled cellulose fibre and 50% hemp. It’s the most sustainable trim element Mercedes has ever used, and yet it looks and feels suitably sophisticated.

Admittedly, the CLA sedan does have quite a conservative external design. It’s still classically elegant in the traditional Mercedes way, eschewing complex surfaces in favour of pure proportions and minimal detailing. Overall, it's still a very good-looking car, despite the lack of excitement and a slightly awkward radiator treatment. Not a single legacy car maker has quite worked out what to do with this once essential combination of brand identifier and engineering centrepiece.

After the brilliance of the powertrain and all the effort that has gone into making it so efficient, it feels like a retrograde step to be launching a PHEV alongside it. No volume car maker can afford to have the courage of its convictions, sadly, and they’re all buffeted this way and that by customer indecision and media fixations on things like the death of manual gearboxes, range anxiety and other perceived EV failings, none of which do much for sales.

Just as the 190 massively increased the company’s potential customer base back in the 80s, the CLA should be good enough to give a huge boost to the idea of a practical, smooth and highly desirable electric Mercedes.

Mercedes-Benz CLA, available soon, details at mercedes-benz.co.uk