- Even though it's built on a bespoke EV platform, the new electric Mercedes still has compromises.
- Space in the rear is compromised in the electric variant and because it has a battery in the floor, it's also taller and less sleek looking than before.
- It also weighs as much as an S-Class, which is unacceptable in a much smaller car.
Mercedes-Benz has just pulled the wraps off its brand-new third-generation CLA-Class, which brings important changes to a familiar formula. The "entry-level" Mercedes is now available as a pure EV or with hybrid power, and it has a lot of impressive engineering under its tapering body. It brings some impressive range and efficiency claims to the table. And it's familiar enough to avoid some of the design mishaps of the unloved Mercedes EQ cars.
Yet while you can't fully judge a car until you drive it, I'm a bit concerned that Mercedes' high-tech EV do-over might be more compromised than we had hoped.
The CLA’s biggest plus points remain the way it looks—you’re not going to mistake this for something else—and the fact that it runs on an 800-volt electric architecture, which allows it to charge quickly and run efficiently. It also has remarkable electric range for its battery capacity, with a WLTP rating of almost 500 miles (800 kilometers), which should still be around 400 miles (643 km) on the EPA’s more realistic test cycle.
Yet after seeing it in person, I have to say it’s not a car that I instantly fell in love with.
It's an improvement over, say, an EQS SUV, but this design is still not quite as sleek and elegant as the older car. The new CLA may only be just over an inch taller, but it looks taller than that compared to the low-slung stance of its predecessor. The front end, with its full-width light bar inspired by the EQXX, looks good, but the lights seem a bit too high-set, and they make the front fascia and the entire vehicle look tall, as does the side profile.
Mercedes has tried to mask how much metal it has on the sides by giving the car creases on the fenders above the wheels. They are meant to make the car look like it has muscular haunches, which it only really has in the rear, but the creases still look good in the front too, even if they are a bit deceiving.
It looks its best from the rear, with its taillights connected through a series of small vertical LED light bars. The lights are quite high-set, but they look excellent in combination with the typical CLA/CLS fastback roofline and the tapering aesthetic. The subtle deck lid ducktail spoiler looks really good, too.
The CLA debuts Mercedes’ new interior design direction, which is still very screen-centric, with up to three screens in the front. However, there’s no screen in the back, like you get as standard on a Tesla Model 3. Mercedes doesn’t seem to care much about the rear occupants in this car, who have less space in the new car than they did in the one it replaces.
To make matters worse, in the CLA EV, the battery that’s in the bottom of the car pushes the floor up and, along with it, the rear passengers’ legs. It also makes rear footwells too shallow, and you can’t slide your feet under the front seat. This may not be a comfy place to travel long distances.
Thankfully, the hybrid CLA doesn’t have this problem, and the rear seats should be much more comfortable. Mercedes wins back some points with the standard panoramic glass roof, which extends all the way to the back and makes sitting in the rear more pleasant. But sitting in the back of a Model 3 is better in every way, even when it comes to perceived quality.
While we used to criticize Tesla for its often shoddily assembled interiors that didn’t seem built to last, the manufacturer has clearly been listening. In the latest Model 3, not only do you get a rock-solid build (which should also the case with the CLA), but you also get soft-touch materials on most surfaces, making the car feel nice and plush.
The CLA’s cabin has exclusively hard plastics, with padded material only on the center part of the door cards. The places you touch regularly feel nice, but in the Model 3, even the ones lower down or in harder-to-reach places feel nice. I honestly can’t believe I’m rating a Tesla’s interior perceived quality higher than that of a Mercedes, but this is my empirical conclusion after experiencing both.
Then we get to the elephant in the room, which is the CLA EV itself. It’s inconceivable to me how Mercedes managed to get the CLA to weigh over two metric tons (4,400 pounds) in its base single-motor configuration or over 2.1 tons (4,630 lbs) for the dual-motor. As was pointed out by our colleagues at Motor1, that’s more than an S-Class, which is just plain ridiculous, and it raises some questions.
We again have to look at the segment benchmark, the Tesla Model 3, which weighs under 1.8 tons (3,968 lbs) in single-motor guise with the long-range battery. That’s a difference of around 300 kilograms (661 lbs), and it makes us wonder how and why Mercedes allowed the CLA to put on this many pounds. Carrying around that much weight also affects braking, increases tire wear and generally makes the car worse.
It’s surprising to me that Mercedes allowed the CLA to get this overweight and not do anything about it. The internet tore another new German plug-in, the BMW M5, a new one for how much it weighed, and the same thing is already starting to happen with the CLA too. If you read the comments below articles written about its debut, the weight issue pops up every single time, often multiple times.
Gallery: 2025 Mercedes CLA in Stuttgart
The CLA EV may dip below the 4,400-pound mark with the smaller LFP battery pack, which should also be lighter. Even so, it will still likely be heavier than a Hyundai Ioniq 6 single-motor long-range, which weighs just over 4,200 pounds.
This isn’t what I had in mind when I first heard Mercedes was turning the CLA into a bespoke EV. Being overweight was one of the things I was sure this was going to avoid, and I was also expecting a flat floor in the back and ample legroom. At least it has a frunk because if it didn’t have one, it would have attracted plenty of criticism for that as well.
I’ve only compared the CLA to the Model 3 and Ioniq 6, but there are also dozens of rivals from China, which offer very competitive specs while undercutting all of the models above.
As a fan of the first two generations of CLA, which I’ve experienced in many powertrain configurations and always found them to be good-looking and nice to drive. Now it's part of Mercedes' move away from having parallel lineups of ICE and EV vehicles, as well as the EQ naming strategy, offering both versions of the same models instead, like BMW or Genesis. That's likely a smart decision as electrification becomes more common and more and more ordinary buyers opt for EVs, but want the kinds of cars they're familiar with from companies like Mercedes. If this is the way things are going for the Stuttgart brand, I'll save my final judgment for when I drive it.
But I'm hoping that all this extra weight and a fairly cramped interior won't totally compromise the CLA experience.
