Mercedes has shown off the longest-ranged electric estate car yet (yes, we know that's a narrow niche) in the shape of the shapely CLA Shooting Brake.
Hang on, technically that's not...
Yes, we know - technically, a shooting brake is supposed to have a three-door layout, not a five-door as the CLA has. Still, Mercedes has been using the Shooting Brake name for its sportier five-door estates for some time now, and we're not going to argue with the badging of a new car that's - thankfully - not an SUV.
You mentioned something about range...
This CLA Shooting Brake - like the CLA “four-door coupe” - has pretty impressive range. Thanks to an 85kWh battery pack, it comes with a one-charge range of up to 761km, which makes it even longer-legged than Volkswagen's ID.7 Tourer.
That's some 31km short of the four-door CLA, but still an impressive range. Much of that is down to the CLA Shooting Brake's impressive aerodynamics, along with a heat pump that's said to be three times more efficient than a conventional heating and air conditioning setup, plus what Mercedes describes as a 99 per cent efficient regenerative braking system.
As with the four-door CLA, there's a choice of a rear-wheel-drive 272hp motor for the CLA 250+, or 353hp for the 350 4Matic thanks to a second motor driving the front wheels. There will also be a petrol-fuelled hybrid version, which will be front-wheel drive.
Like the four-door, the CLA Shooting Brake is built on a new electric-focused platform, which shares only a few carry-over components with the old “NGCC” platform used for the previous CLA.
How practical is the CLA Shooting Brake?
Compared to the four-door CLA, there's an extra 50 litres of luggage space up to the retracting cover, for a total of 455 litres. Fold down the back seats and there's a useful 1,290 litres of total cargo volume, which isn't bad considering the sloping rear-end styling. There's another 100 litres of space in the 'frunk' in the nose.
The CLA Shooting Brake can also tow, capable of hauling up to 1,800kg if you're driving the CLA 350 4Matic four-wheel-drive model, or up to 1,500kg if you're in the 250+.
What about charging?
That's a bit... complicated. The 85kWh battery pack can be charged at up to 320kW if you can find a charger that powerful, and that's enough to add an extra 310km of range in just ten minutes of charging, which is hugely impressive.
However, there's a problem - to get that charging speed, the CLA Shooting Brake, like the four-door, uses 800-volt charging, but unlike other car makers which have switched to 800-volt systems, there's no backwards-compatibility for the CLA to use older 400-volt chargers.
Given that's the majority of DC charging points in Ireland, this could be a significant issue. There is apparently a fix on the way, and the CLA Shooting Brake won't go on sale here until at least the middle of next year, so hopefully that won't be a problem by the time the car arrives on the Irish market.
Assuming that does get fixed, the CLA Shooting Brake's charging is really impressive, so fast that Mercedes says it's “almost as fast as refuelling.” The battery is also a next-generation unit, with a silicon-oxide anode which allows the battery to have a claimed 20 per cent improvement in energy density compared to previous designs. It's also reckoned to be about 30 per smaller in its carbon footprint.
What about the Shooting Brake's interior?
Basically it's the same as the four-door's, so you get a full-width digital dashboard for high-end models, with a digital driver's display, a big 14.9-inch infotainment screen in the middle and an optional passenger touchscreen (or, instead of the passenger screen, a 'decorative panel' for lower-spec cars).
The in-car tech is impressive, with streaming services like Disney+ and YouTube native to the new “MB.OS” operating system, and you can download games too, with wireless connections for PlayStation and Xbox controllers if you want to play some Fortnite while you're charging up.
There's also a new optional multi-spoke steering wheel, which does away with some (not all) of the oft-derided touch-sensitive buttons in favour of a couple of proper physical controls.
Up top, the panoramic glass roof grows a bit compared to the four-door's version and, for the first time in a Mercedes, it comes with electric shading, so you can blank out the roof in seven segments. There's also heat-absorbing glass, which Mercedes says is actually more effective than a solid sunshade, and there's ambient lighting built into the glass too, as you can have shining Mercedes stars strewn across the roof.
Buyers can even choose between digital voice assistants - the CLA Shooting Brake offers the choice between Microsoft or Google. While the underlying software is entirely Mercedes' own design, the navigation system uses Google Maps as its basis, although as with other Mercedes systems, the navigation uses augmented reality to overlay direction arrows onto a live feed from the forward-facing camera to make sure you never take a wrong turn again.
As you'd expect, MB.OS is designed to get over-the-air software updates, but Mercedes says that this is about more than just adding the occasional new feature - the plan is that the whole car, from the infotainment system to the overall battery efficiency and the electronic driver aids can be updated and improved as the CLA Shooting Brake ages. It might even be a better car after you've owned it for a few years.
It looks the same, but different...
You can certainly see the influence of the two previous generations of CLA Shooting Brake in the styling, although at the front Mercedes has gone for a much more aggressive look, with a big star-studded grille (142 of them, and they light up) set down low, with slim headlights and a fully-width LED light bar above. Mercedes calls it a “Shark Nose”, but it's more Basking than Mako.
At the rear, the overall look is very similar to what came before on the CLA Shooting Brake, although the lines are a touch softer and more rounded. One neat touch is that the rear spoiler is, if you tick the options box for the panoramic glass roof, dual-colour - body colour at the outer sections, and black in the centre so that it looks as if the roof flows seamlessly into the rear glass.
What comes next?
Mercedes plans to spin four models off this new platform - the CLA four-door, this CLA Shooting Brake and two SUVs, which will be replacements for the current Mercedes EQB and EQA.
The new Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake should hit Irish shores in mid-2026, though pricing has yet to be announced.