Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class COTY Review: An EV Tour de Force and an Imperfect Car
Incredible real-world range and charging go a long way, but they come with compromises.
Pros
- Incredible range
- Incredible charging
- Excellent tech
Cons
- Everything’s computer
- Rear seat is an afterthought
- Needs more damping
If you’ve studied cars for a minute, it’s hard to think of the entry-level Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class as a technological moonshot, but this new one is. The company has thrown everything it knows about batteries, electric drive systems, and all relevant forms of efficiency at its smallest and least expensive car, and the results are nothing short of staggering.
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Mercedes’ initial foray into EVs hasn’t gone as well as the brand had hoped, but rather than pull back like many of its competitors, the company plowed even more engineering resources into the project. The new CLA-Class is the first production vehicle to come of the effort, and it plants a hell of a flag. The CLA350 that showed up to our annual Car of the Year competition took our instrumented testing regime by storm.
In the MotorTrend Road-Trip Range test, during which our test team drives an EV from 100 percent battery down to 5 percent at a constant 70 mph, the CLA350 4Matic went 374 miles. That’s not just a big number outright; it’s also 18 percent higher than the official EPA range rating, the largest margin of range underestimation we’ve ever observed.
Then we plugged it in, and it damn near broke charging-speed records, too. A handful of other cars have charged from 5 percent to 80 percent quicker than this car’s 25 minutes, and a couple added more range in the first 15 minutes of charging than this one’s 198 miles, but otherwise the CLA350 added more miles of driving range in 30 minutes and 45 minutes than any other EV we’ve tested. And at the 30-minute mark, it was already well over 80 percent charged.
Mercedes engineers didn’t just figure out how to make it go far, though. Despite the low rolling resistance tires, it still handles quite nicely, accelerates briskly and smoothly, and is luxury car quiet inside. It’s absolutely packed with technology, from a truly useful agentic AI virtual assistant to a good self-parking system and excellent hands-on semi-autonomous driving tech that’s a software update away from going hands-free. That last technology is also hardware-protected for eyes-off-the-road autonomy.
All the tech comes at a variety of costs, however. First, this CLA350 costs $66,280 as it sits, and you can buy a lot of very good cars for that money, many of which offer more interior space. The back seats’ cramped space and dearth of features and materials quality relative to the front row registered additional demerits, as did too-soft dampers that lead to bounding over larger bumps.
There’s also the matter of the screens. Mercedes-Benz touts its latest Superscreen as a technological triumph, but all we see is a wall of computer monitors in lieu of traditional craftsmanship. The vents at the ends are neat, though.
This all makes the new CLA-Class a bit of a conundrum. Its technical achievements are unimpeachable, but the compromises they entail and the price point they necessitate have us wondering if we really take enough road trips to make it worth picking this car over similarly priced EVs. Now, when this same powertrain technology shows up in the GLB-Class SUV? Look out.
This review was conducted as part of our 2027 Car of the Year (COTY) testing, where each vehicle is evaluated on our six key criteria: efficiency, design, safety, engineering excellence, value, and performance of intended function. Eligible vehicles must be all-new or significantly revised.
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Were you one of those kids who taught themselves to identify cars at night by their headlights and taillights? I was. I was also one of those kids with a huge box of Hot Wheels and impressive collection of home-made Lego hot rods. I asked my parents for a Power Wheels Porsche 911 for Christmas for years, though the best I got was a pedal-powered tractor. I drove the wheels off it. I used to tell my friends I’d own a “slug bug” one day. When I was 15, my dad told me he would get me a car on the condition that I had to maintain it. He came back with a rough-around-the-edges 1967 Volkswagen Beetle he’d picked up for something like $600. I drove the wheels off that thing, too, even though it was only slightly faster than the tractor. When I got tired of chasing electrical gremlins (none of which were related to my bitchin’ self-installed stereo, thank you very much), I thought I’d move on to something more sensible. I bought a 1986 Pontiac Fiero GT and got my first speeding ticket in that car during the test drive. Not my first-ever ticket, mind you. That came behind the wheel of a Geo Metro hatchback I delivered pizza in during high school. I never planned to have this job. I was actually an aerospace engineering major in college, but calculus and I had a bad breakup. Considering how much better my English grades were than my calculus grades, I decided to stick to my strengths and write instead. When I made the switch, people kept asking me what I wanted to do with my life. I told them I’d like to write for a car magazine someday, not expecting it to actually happen. I figured I’d be in newspapers, maybe a magazine if I was lucky. Then this happened, which was slightly awkward because I grew up reading Car & Driver, but convenient since I don’t live in Michigan. Now I just try to make it through the day without adding any more names to the list of people who want to kill me and take my job.
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