Can Mercedes' electric CLA overtake Tesla?

With a consumption of 12 kW and an impressive range of 750 kilometers, Mercedes is sending its new CLA into the race. Declaration of war on Tesla.

The wind blows icy over the Timmelsjoch. The pass road lies lonely and white in front of us. It ended abruptly at the highest point at 2,474 meters. Nothing Italy. Winter closure. It's 9 a.m. and still bitterly cold at minus 14.5 degrees. Slowly it approaches an orange-red spot from the snowy desert and winds its way up the serpentines. Camouflage. We are not yet allowed to see the new Mercedes-Benz CLA in its entirety. The world premiere will not take place until spring. But we can go along. Pretty exclusive – which is not pompous this fall, but really exciting. Because the CLA is the first vehicle in the completely newly developed electric generation from Mercedes. It is based on the new MMA platform, on which the new CLA Shooting Brake and the Mercedes GLA and GLB SUVs will also be built. Did you notice? The EQ models are history, now a Mercedes is once again called what it should be.

Only 12 KW – consumption values ​​on the hunt for records

“Efficiency is the new currency,” says Timo Stegmaier, who is behind the wheel of the CLA, which ideally should dethrone Tesla. As Senior Manager Electric Drive System, the engineer is something like the chief guru of Mercedes-Benz electric drives. His team also developed the technology carrier Vision EQXX, which can travel over 1,200 kilometers on a single battery charge. If efficiency is the new currency – what is the current rate for the CLA, we want to know. “The goal was a consumption of 12 kWh per 100 kilometers,” says the engineer, “and we subordinated everything to this goal right from the start!” The new CLA should now have a range of over 750 kilometers, which would be impressive for a compact car. And more than the current Audi Q6-e-tron or the luxury electric car Air Pure from Lucid. While Stegmaier completes the last test kilometers on snow and ice with the CLA, which is also completely camouflaged on the inside, he at least lets himself take a look at the developer maps.

New battery with 20 percent more energy

“The range was set, so we trimmed the entire system for efficiency,” he says. And that starts with the battery. A lot of range requires a lot of battery. A lot of battery also weighs quite a lot. And weight therefore costs range. A vicious circle that Mercedes is trying to break with the CLA. With a new generation of batteries, for example. In the large battery with a usable energy content of 85 kWh, the cell chemistry was changed so that the energy density increased by 20 percent. A nice side effect: battery costs fall by up to 30 percent. Benz also offers a basic model with a smaller 58 kWh energy storage unit that has a different cell chemistry. Mercedes has also switched to the powerful 800-volt system. This allows the CLA to be charged with up to 320 kW. What does that mean? Mercedes cites “300 kilometers of range in ten minutes” as a particularly useful value. This means that you are finally on a par with comparable systems, such as the Hyundai Ioniq 5.

All-wheel drive CLA with two engines: 272 hp at the rear, 109 hp at the front

Its own batteries, its own electronics, its own engines – this time Mercedes left nothing to chance or to the suppliers; the most important components were developed in-house. In the electric CLA, the main drive is always on the rear axle. The heart of the so-called Electric Drive Unit (EDU) is a 200 kW (272 hp) permanently controlled synchronous machine. There is also power electronics with an inverter and a two-speed gearbox. Everything in a compact housing. “We need second gear for efficiency,” says Stegmaier. “Look at whether you notice a transition?” That’s how it is with the rhetorical questions: Of course you can’t detect a gear change, that’s how finely the system works. But we definitely feel the extremely powerful torque. How high it is has not yet been revealed, but in any case it is enormous and the ample traction inspires confidence despite the icy conditions.

93 percent – ​​that’s how good the efficiency of the Mercedes CLA is

The rear EDU on the 4-Matic models is supported by a second electric motor on the front axle. This 80 kW (109 hp) machine is also permanently excited, but can be disconnected from the system within 0.2 seconds using the so-called DCU (Disconnect Unit). This reduces drag losses on the front axle and increases the range. The front engine gets involved again just as quickly when a lot of power and traction is needed. As an electric booster that is immediately on the ball. Dynamic when necessary, but usually as efficient as possible. “The efficiency of our drive,” says Stegmaier, not without pride, “is 93 percent on long journeys from the battery to the wheel.” Recuperation, which can feed up to 200 kW back into the system, also contributes to the efficiency . In everyday life, all braking processes should be carried out quickly using the power generator. “We even recover energy when the ABS is running,” says the Mercedes chief electrician.

He only becomes taciturn when it comes to aerodynamics. It's clear that there was a fight for every percentage point behind the decimal point, but ultimately Mercedes will still have ammunition for communication at the world premiere in the spring. This certainly includes the high-profile drag coefficient. Our thirst for knowledge is to be satisfied with the efficiency world record that Mercedes set on the Sicilian high-speed line from Nardo. A prototype covered 3,717 kilometers within 24 hours, which corresponds to a distance from Trondheim in Norway to Istanbul in Turkey. And that at temperatures between 13 degrees (at night) and 29 degrees during the day. For the statisticians among us: we go to the pump 40 times for ten minutes each. Much more necessary than necessary, but here too the issue of efficiency took over.