Perhaps you were one of the legions of critics of the whole Mercedes-EQ thing—what with the oddball naming convention and the even odder egg-shaped styling. If so, consider yourself vindicated. The backpedaling is now fully underway.
A slew of new product announcements have signaled that Mercedes plans to move back toward a more traditional lineup, one where vehicles with different powertrains exist alongside one another with fraternal-twin styling. We’ve seen the first fruits of this new direction with the G-class: The G550 has a gas engine, while visually identical the G580 is electric. And the upcoming new CLA-class keeps this momentum going.
We’ve already had an early exposure to the upcoming electric CLA, and now it’s time to take the CLA hybrid for a spin.
Not-So-Mild Hybrid
One of the, let’s say, peculiarities of the Car and Driver style guide is that we generally don’t separate “mild hybrids” from their more traditional counterparts. Yes, so-called mild hybrids do still contain electric motors and a battery (albeit a very tiny one), but these 48-volt systems exist mostly to enable engine-off coasting and extend the length of stop-start engagement. They’re nothing like a Prius.
The CLA hybrid is also a 48-volt hybrid, but it’s just different enough to make us glad we never split those hairs. The gas side of the equation comes in the form of a new 1.5-liter four-cylinder, dubbed M252, running on the more efficient Miller cycle. This combines with a 1.3-kWh lithium-ion battery, as well as a 27-hp electric motor sandwiched inside the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. In total, the CLA hybrid should be good for about 188 horsepower.
So what makes the CLA hybrid so different? Simply put, it wants to do more than a “mild hybrid” normally can. Forty-eight-volt hybrids generally pull a bit of energy from the brakes, but the CLA can jam up to 25 kilowatts of juice back into the system at any time. The brake pedal itself is new too; it’s part of an integrated module that, in most circumstances, does not provide a mechanical connection between your foot and your brakes. Instead, the pedal’s force and travel—and the actions of the brakes themselves—are generated electronically, though there is a hydraulic fallback if needed. The module’s goal is to ensure maximum usage of regenerative braking, with friction braking only entering the picture as needed.
Mercedes promises that the CLA hybrid will also be capable of electric-only operation in short bursts, but don’t expect to cruise 10 miles on battery power alone—unless you’re at the top of a very large hill. It’ll permit EV operation in traffic, and perhaps on your way out of your neighborhood, but not much more than that.
Driving the CLA Hybrid
Our time with the CLA was limited to pre-production prototypes, which we experienced in the same way that its engineers did during the car’s cold-weather development. Thus, we started our journey at the top of a Swedish mountain with rutted roads covered in ice and snow.
With simple non-studded winter tires underfoot, the CLA kept itself nice and tidy on the way down—until we gave the wheel a good yank, at which point the car was more than happy to drift. You get more lateral leeway in Sport mode, but no matter the setting, the electronic stability control will eventually rein everything in with minimal noise or vibration. It acted quickly too; by the time we made a steering correction input, the car was already halfway to sorted out.
Since the first stretch was entirely downhill, the combustion engine never turned on. Small throttle inputs would provide a smidgeon of acceleration at will, but the temptation of power-induced oversteer couldn’t be satiated without a fat stab of the gas, at which point the engine would step in—and without much fuss, since the e-motor also functions as the starter.
If your commute happens to be wholly in a downhill direction (the opposite of how your grandpa walked to school), you won’t hear much from the engine. Which is fine; the 1.5-liter Miller-cycle four sounds okay, but only just okay. The handoff from e-motor to gas engine was more or less imperceptible—a point of praise we must also extend to the new brake-pedal setup, which provided nothing but consistent, strong pedal feel without any blending weirdness. That last bit is notable for anyone who’s driven a Benz EQ model.
The second portion of our CLA jaunt took place at a Mercedes-Benz proving ground atop a frozen lake. This part was mostly outright hooliganism. You’ll be glad to learn that you can do snowy donuts all day in the CLA, and it’s rewarding, though maybe not as much as in the insta-torque EV variant.
It’s impressive what Mercedes has managed to get out of a 48-volt hybrid system, and that system operates with a delightful smoothness. Nothing odd about that.
Cars are Andrew Krok’s jam, along with boysenberry. After graduating with a degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009, Andrew cut his teeth writing freelance magazine features, and now he has a decade of full-time review experience under his belt. A Chicagoan by birth, he has been a Detroit resident since 2015. Maybe one day he’ll do something about that half-finished engineering degree.
Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
