Introduction to the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250+
This is the third time Mercedes has made a CLA. The previous two generations have been based on the front-wheel-drive 'NGCC' platform (that's New Generation Compact Class) and so shared their front-wheel-drive architecture with the Mercedes A-Class hatchback, as well as a plethora of other models.
Now, though, Mercedes is trimming lineup, preferring to concentrate on higher-end cars with chunkier profit margins, and so we'll soon be saying goodbye to the likes of the A-Class and the B-Class. The CLA sticks around though, and this time it won't have to awkwardly share space in the showroom with the slightly cheaper A-Class saloon.
The new CLA is riding on a new platform, which has been designed to be flexible in that it can accommodate fully electric or hybrid power, as well as rear-, four- and front-wheel-drive layouts.
Along with the physical platform, there's also the debut of the new MB.OS software, an electronic setup of Mercedes' own design, which runs everything from the vehicle performance to the touchscreens. This OS could end up being just as important as the physical structure of the CLA, perhaps more so.
Most significantly of all though, the CLA, in the 250+ form tested here, has a long range - up to 792km on the WLTP cycle, from an 85kWh battery. That, if it can be proved realistic, is serious content-crossing range, meaning that the CLA could drive from the launch location in Copenhagen back to Mercedes HQ in Stuttgart with battery charge to spare.
Pros & Cons of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250+
Pros: Exceptional real-world range, cabin layout and quality, comfort, refinement, technology
Cons: Not quite sharp enough in the corners, some cheap bits inside, rear seat comfort
Exterior & Design of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA
• 'Four-door coupe' look remains
• Much more expressive front end
• Fractionally longer than before
Mercedes reckons that the CLA is a four-door coupe, a fact underlined by its cool frameless doors (which require significant 'optimisation' of the roof structure for safety, says Mercedes), but really, it's now more than ever a sleek four-door saloon, aimed squarely at the Tesla Model 3, the Polestar 2 and BMW's upcoming 'Neue Klasse' i3 saloon. The new CLA's overall dimensions are:
Length: 4,723mm
Width: 1,855mm
Height: 1,468mm
Wheelbase: 2,790mm
That makes the new CLA fractionally longer and taller than the previous model, although subjectively it looks considerably taller when you're standing next to it, because the ride height has had to come up a bit to allow the big battery to fit between the wheels (in fact, the battery pack doesn't actually start until about where the front passenger's heels would be, in the interests of crash protection).
The CLA is certainly low and sleek by modern standards however, and it makes a refreshing change from the overwhelming tide of samey-samey SUVs to have a roofline that stops at one's midriff.
At the rear, there's clear commonality in the design of this CLA and the old one. The roof arcs down gracefully to a low-set boot, giving the CLA some semblance of being a true coupe.
At the front, it's quite the departure. There's a massive new grille, set low down into the front bumper. As it doesn't have to be open for cooling, it is instead studded with 142 Mercedes three-pointed stars, all of which light up at night. You're never going to be in doubt as to what's driving towards you.
Above that grille are quite aggressive looking headlights, which feed into a full-width light bar that runs under the leading edge of the bonnet. Mercedes calls it a shark nose, but for our money it's a bit too rounded and soft for that.
Still, it's a handsome thing, and looks well-balanced on its 19-inch alloys. Possibly far more important than the aesthetics are the aerodynamics, as Mercedes has managed to trim the CLA's coefficient-of-drag figure to just 0.21, comparable with the big Mercedes EQS saloon, and a key component of the car's range and efficiency.
Interior, Practicality, Tech & Comfort of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA
• Full-width digital cockpit
• Reasonably practical
• Slightly small in the back
If the Mercedes CLA is going to convince you that it's a coupe, then it will do so when you try to sit into the back seat. Actually, space is reasonably good - I can fit in comfortably behind my own six-foot driving position - but there's a catch: the rear seat base is sharply angled, and the rear floor quite high, so your knees sit up high, and the backs of your legs are unsupported.
Combine that with not quite enough space for big feet to fit under the front seats, and you have something that at least plays a traditional coupe tune - the CLA is practical enough, but you wouldn't want to be in the back for a long journey
Up front is a different matter. The seats, finished in a lovely soft leather in our test car, are terrifically comfortable, although the driver's doesn't drop down quite low enough on its electric adjuster for our taste.
The dashboard is a clear evolution from that of the previous CLA. In the old model, it looked as if someone had stretched an iPad out, like Play-Do, to the centre of the dashboard. Now, the iPad IS the dashboard, as if you pick the option of a third screen for the front-seat passenger, there's an unbroken stretch of digital screens between the round, backlit, 'jet turbine' air vents of the CLA.
It looks pretty impressive, with the screens set more or less vertically in a cliff-face effect, and the graphics, whether it's the Google Maps-based navigation or the crisp, clear main instruments, look good.
Mercedes new MB.OS system seems to work well, and it's certainly responsive and fast enough, although the dearth of physical controls is a shame. The software is, of course, designed to receive over-the-air updates, and Mercedes reckons that the whole car can be improved bit by bit as it ages thanks to better software.
There's a lot of third-party app integration, including the option to use Google Assistant or Microsoft voice control systems instead of the baked-in “Hey, Mercedes” one, and you can of course download streaming apps (including the likes of Disney+), and games (even Fortnite), and you can wirelessly connect your PlayStation or Xbox controller, too.
However, there's a bit of a dichotomy in the extra screen for the front seat passenger. Is it useful? Potentially, as the passenger can watch a movie or help with the navigation (and the satnav is brilliant, using augmented reality to overlay direction arrows on a live picture from the forward-facing camera), but it's a bit of a distraction for the driver.
There's a camera in the centre screen that monitors the driver's eyeline (as well as acting as a slightly pointless selfie camera) and which flashes up warnings if it catches you looking at the passenger screen while driving, but Mercedes says that it didn't want to use a 'Venetian blind' style screen which could be viewed only by the passenger, as the screen can also be used as an art installation, displaying your choice of images.
Which all seems a bit odd - in an era of increasingly intrusive surveillance-based safety, why provide the option of a massive screen which will function as a honking great driver distraction, especially at night?
At least the CLA is pretty practical. The boot holds 405 litres, which is fine, although it's a touch shallow. It's helpfully backed up by the 'frunk' storage area in the nose, which can hold 101 litres, and which is an ideal place to keep your charging cables, or to throw some shopping bags into if you fancy freaking other shoppers out in the Dunnes Stores car park (honestly, I've done this, it's great fun).
Need more space than that? Well, the CLA Shooting Brake estate arrives soon...
Performance of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250+
• Brisk acceleration
• Very comfortable ride
• Lacks the 'planted' feel of other Mercs
Our test CLA 250+ wasn't an AMG-Line model, so it wasn't set up to be especially sporty. And so it proved. On this outing, the new CLA didn't quite have the pleasantly 'planted' feeling of the previous model, and indeed of some other Mercedes cars.
Part of the problem might be the launch location, to be fair. The roads around Copenhagen are broad, smooth, lacking in tight, challenging corners, and have low speed limits which are ruthlessly enforced, so our chances to really get under the skin of the new CLA were limited at best.
It could be that, like many other Mercedes models, the CLA gets better and better the harder the questions you ask of it, but that will have to wait until we get one at home on familiar, faster roads. The steering is nicely weighted, but doesn't talk to you much, and the few sharp corners we came across seemed to indicate that the CLA's two-tonne kerb weight has rather too much to say about how it handles.
A disappointment? Slightly, but the upside is tremendous refinement and comfort, with a very well-judged ride quality that does a brilliant job of rounding off the worst urban lumps without letting the CLA become all floppy and indistinct on the open road.
There are selectable driving modes - Comfort, Eco, Sport and Individual - and they all come with various electronic whooshing noises in the place of engine sounds, which are occasionally amusing.
Noise isolation is exceptionally good too, so as a long-haul car, and especially a long-haul electric car what with that range, the CLA could be just about unbeatable.
Performance is fine, but not very thrilling, as reflected in the 6.7-second 0-100km/h time. The CLA is the first electric Mercedes to get a two-speed automatic transmission, with the lower ratio giving the car faster acceleration, and the higher ratio for cruising around. Mercedes says that the gearbox has been designed to have imperceptible shifts so you don't feel it operating, and in spite of trying hard to, we couldn't.
Range, battery, and charging of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA
• Range stacks up in real-world conditions
• Capable of ridiculously fast charging
• Compatibility with older chargers could be an issue
A 792km range, if it were genuinely achievable, would allow you to drive from Paris to Marseilles without stopping. Or to drive from the CLA's launch location at the northern tip of Denmark all the way back to Mercedes HQ in Stuttgart with range to spare. Can the CLA actually do it, though?
Yes, we think it can. Now, again, we were driving on Danish roads, which are slower than Irish roads (aside from the motorways which have a 130km/h speed limit) and that certainly helps to preserve range. Then again, it was 28 degrees out, and we were running the air conditioning hard all day to stay cool, which doesn't help the battery (although there's a clever air-to-air heat pump system which Mercedes reckons uses one third the power of traditional cabin heating and cooling setups).
So, over a test drive of 260km on urban and country roads, and with a lengthy spell on the motorway, we managed to average 14.4kWh/100km, which is not only one of the best average energy consumption figures we've ever seen in an electric car, but it also indicates that the CLA has a potential real-world range of 590km in boiling hot summer conditions.
Better yet, returning back to base with a half-used battery, the range meter was suggesting that we had another 350km left to run, which suggests a possible range of as much as 700km. Certainly, we reckon 600km is easily doable if you're careful with your driving style, and make full use of the very effective regenerative braking setup (which has a one-pedal mode for around town and which is adjusted by moving the gear selector back and forth) and 700km might just be possible in ideal conditions. On a long motorway run, you should be getting at least 500km before you need to finally charge.
When you do, you won't be charging for long, although that comes with a major caveat. Thanks to its 800-volt charging system, the CLA can charge at up to 320kW from a very high-speed DC charger, meaning that it can add between 310km and 325km (Mercedes engineers seemed slightly variable in their claim on this point) in just ten minutes. A 10-80 per cent charge (which going by our experience should top you back up to around 500km range) takes just 22 minutes.
However, there's a big catch, or at least there is right now. Mercedes has gone all-in on 800-volt charging, to the point where, at the moment, the CLA can't actually use an older 400-volt DC charging point. Which is a problem, as that's the technology that most of Ireland's current charging network runs on, and that's probably not going to change very quickly.
In mitigation, Mercedes points out that the CLA's vast range and its charger-seeking navigation means that you shouldn't need to charge very often and can be guided to the right sort of charger when you need to, but it's still a big limitation. A fix is on the way, apparently, and we just have to hope that it arrives by the time the CLA goes on sale in Ireland in Q2 of next year.
Mercedes will eventually offer a smaller battery model with a range of around 500km to bring CLA prices down a touch (and it seems that smaller battery will be a more rugged LFP design, too), and there will also be a hybrid model, based around a turbocharged 1.5-litre petrol engine, with front-wheel drive, for those who still waver at the move to electric.
Running costs of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA
• Exceptional efficiency
• Warranty not brilliant
• All EVs are cheap to run
The CLA really is exceptionally efficient, and we managed to match its 'high' WLTP figure of 14.4kWh/100km in real-world driving, which is good going especially considering the high ambient temperatures of the test. While we need to evaluate it in Irish conditions to get a proper handle on its efficiency, the CLA is off to a great start.
Mercedes only offers a two-year warranty on its new cars in Ireland, which really isn't much when you consider that the likes of Toyota can stretch a warranty out to a full ten years, albeit with stringent conditions. Still, at least the Mercedes warranty has unlimited mileage, and the CLA will have a longer battery warranty - ten years and up to 250,000km - than most rivals.
Irish Pricing & Rivals of the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA
• No Irish pricing yet
• Big battery means it probably won't be cheap
• Standard equipment should be good
Those of us old enough to remember the bare, black Mercedes interiors of old, where everything was an option, might be mildly shocked by the new CLA's feature-filled cabin. That big 14.9-inch touchscreen is standard, as is built-in navigation, as are electrically adjustable seats and an incredibly good stereo (with an optional Burmester system that should knock the wax out of your ears).
However, this is all a bit moot as the CLA won't arrive here in Ireland until the middle of next year, and prices are not yet set.
In the UK, the CLA is quite aggressively priced - especially considering its range on one charge - but here, there's a broad spectrum for it to aim at, from the cheap Tesla Model 3 (€44,990 for the long-range 702km version) to the BMW i4 (which starts at €53,105). If we had to guess, the CLA will probably start at mid-to-high fifties for this 250+ model. It will also have to take on the likes of the (hugely impressive) Polestar 2 and the (excellent value) BYD Seal, among others.
Verdict - Should You Buy the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250+
Yes - definitely. In fact, this is potentially something of a game-changing EV in that its promised range is not illusory but is actually generally repeatable in the real world. Certainly, the CLA has more electric range than most drivers will ever need to realistically use in one day, and fast charging (with that caveat of 400-volt compatibility) when you need it. It's also good looking (if perhaps a little less so than before), has a gorgeous interior with impressive tech and is ok, if short of brilliant, to drive.
FAQs About the 2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250+
How many child seats fit in the back of the Mercedes CLA?
There are two ISOFIX points for child car safety seats in the back of the CLA, but the space on offer might preclude fitting very bulky rear-facing seats, and there's not really enough space in the centre rear seat for a booster cushion, certainly not a large one. There's no ISOFIX point in the front passenger seat, either, which may be a further limitation.
What is the range of the Mercedes CLA EV?
Mercedes says that the CLA, with its 85kWh battery, has a range of up to 792km, and in our experience it should do at least 600km before you need to charge it up again.
Do Mercedes EVs come with free charging?
No. In some markets, Mercedes does offer some complimentary charging sessions for its EVs when they're new, but that doesn't apply in Ireland.
How safe is the Mercedes CLA?
It hasn't been assessed by Euro NCAP yet, but Mercedes is expecting a full five-star score for the CLA, and with high percentage scores in the individual categories. Certainly, it will be incredibly safe in an actual crash, thanks to its new centre front airbag (which stops you cracking heads with your front seat passenger), extra structural protection for the battery, and a constantly evolving electronic safety setup.
It helps that, like Volvo, Mercedes sends investigating teams out to survey real-world accidents involving its cars, in Europe, the US and India, giving the safety engineers valuable data from outside the laboratory. Mercedes says it conducted 150 physical crash tests of the new CLA in its development, as well as countless computer simulations.
Want to know more about the Mercedes CLA?
Is there anything else you'd like to know about the Mercedes CLA? Or anything you feel we haven't covered here? Then just head over to our Ask Us Anything section and, well, ask us anything.
