Advanced new Mercedes CLA to offer hybrid and EV options

The 2025 Mercedes CLA saloon will be so high-tech it will be “safer than an S-Class”, brand boss Ola Källenius has told Auto Express.

He also revealed that the all-new car, previewed as the pure-electric CLA concept last year, will have “world beating four-cylinder engines”. Mercedes is having to hedge its bets and develop both electric and combustion models, as global EV demand is running at half the level the industry originally expected.  

The CLA will be the first of four all-new Mercedes ‘entry luxury’ cars based on a new MMA architecture, designed “electric first” but also offering hybridised petrol engines. The other three models will be replacements for the GLA and GLB SUVs, and the CLA Shooting Brake – with Mercedes picking the portfolio according to the biggest global demand. That means the current A-Class hatchback will not be replaced. 

It also means combustion engines are essential, to avoid making the MMA-based range irrelevant to a large chunk of the car-buying public. “We will have the choice for consumers of electric vehicle, high-tech combustion and plug-in hybrid,” said the Mercedes chairman.

Mercedes will keep developing its mild-hybrid four-cylinder petrol and plug-in hybrid engines, to keep them compliant with tightening European emissions regulations due in the next few years. 

“It would never have made sense to cut off our combustion business in Europe in 2027 in any scenario,” he told us. “Which means [we’ll offer a] powertrain portfolio from the brand new, high-tech, hybridised, world beating four-cylinder that we're developing for the MMA platform, all the way up to the V8 that AMG customers love.”

The upcoming baby Benz may be compact but it’ll be packed with technology, introducing the all-new Mercedes Operating System (MB.OS) delivering leading-edge connected, infotainment and autonomous driving features. 

Mercedes is the world’s first car maker to get Level 3 ‘eyes-off’ assisted driving approved by regulators in Germany and some US states, and next year S-Class and EQS owners will be able to watch videos or email at the wheel while their vehciles cruise behind a lorry at up to 95kmh (59mph) on the autobahn. 

And the CLA will build on this, with all the necessary hardware – cameras, LiDAR, sensors and back-up steering and braking systems – equipped in the architecture and ready to be activated by Over The Air software updates if a customer doesn’t specify Drive Pilot 95 at launch. It theoretically enables Mercedes to extend autonomous driving uses into urban areas – assuming the technological challenges are surpassed over the MMA cars’ lifecycles. 

“The next generation automated driving in the CLA will be the most sophisticated, the best assistant system that we have ever done, by a wide, wide margin,” said the boss. “As quickly as possible that would come back up into the S-Class: even though the one in today’s S-Class is probably the best in the world, the CLA will beat it.” At least until the new S-Class arrives on an updated version of today’s architecture by 2028.

But all this tech will come at a price – Mercedes indicates that list prices could jump as much as 20 per cent, which would suggest a starting price in the UK of just under £60,000 for an electric CLA. 

But the spec of the MMA-based EVs looks highly competitive. With an 800-volt electrical architecture (twice that of current Teslas), the CLA should be able to restore almost 250 miles of range in around 15 minutes on a 300kW DC public charger. Indeed Mercedes predicts a total range beyond 460 miles, thanks to its latest battery-cell chemistry and an efficient electric drivetrain.

Auto Express was speaking to Källenius at Mercedes’ Immendingen proving ground, where he’d earlier been driving the new CLA. “We are preparing for the biggest product offensive in the company’s history,” he told us. “And we kick it off with the first car on the MMA architecture, the CLA, and I drove it on the proving ground today. 

“I’m ever so slightly biased, but it’s a fantastic car and it’s a new car that ushers in a new era. It’s going to be one new Mercedes vehicle after another from 2025 to 2028,” he said. 

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