Crucial new Benz electric expected here early to mid 2026 designed to set premium sector pace.

IF RANGE is of primary importance in respect to what kind of family-sized premium electric car you seek to buy, then potentially the CLA will be a friend in waiting.

Two battery-wed versions of Mercedes’ latest - first out as a four door coupe, but with a Shooting Brake wagon coming - can eke 792 kilometres from a charge.

All also won’t linger when replenishing, being engineered for super fast charging, of up to 320kW. And speaking of fast power, there’s a 263kW flagship in the family.

And it’s not just an assault with pure battery. This foil to the Tesla Model 3 - which it slightly outsizes - Polestar 2 and an expected onslaught of electric sedans from China’s domestic makes is also to present in a hybrid form.

These also support the electric cause as they can operate solely on electric power in urban environments and at speeds up to approximately 100 kmh when power demand is below 20kW.

For all that, Benz makes clear the first car on a new platform called the Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) has been primarily designed as a fully electric product – components to accommodate an engine were added later, rather than the reverse. The brand says any compromises in the packaging and design will be felt in the petrol-engined models, not the electric ones.

Mercedes Benz New Zealand has yet to make clear what its range will look like here, but potential is that it will be offered in both mild hybrid and fully battery-wed forms, across rear- and all-wheel-drive, when released locally, with timing for that being signalled by Benz regional office in Melbourne as early to mid 2026.

How much? There’s no talk of that yet, but this is a premium product. The flagship of the previous generation line, the 310kW/500Nm CLA 45 S, cost $140,500. It also configured in a 35 mild hybrid form, with 225kW/400Nm, for $115,900.

Ultimately, four distinct cars are earmarked for MMA: Aside from the CLA in sedan and wagon, there will also be GLA and GLB sports utilities. And a new A-Class? Sorry, no. That product will stick around for a bit longer, but will ultimately become defunct. Likewise the B-class.

The electric editions are the first cars of the ‘EV 2.0’ era for Mercedes.

These use an 800-volt charging architecture – also seen in other EVs like the Hyundai and Kia E-GMP cars and the Porsche Taycan - with a 320kW maximum DC fast-charge speed for variants with the largest, 85kWh battery.

Adding 36kWh of charge – about 42 percent of the battery's total capacity – is said to take 10 minutes at a 320kW station.

Bi-directional charging capability includes with vehicle-to-home (V2H), vehicle-to-grid (V2G) - where it is allowed - and vehicle-to-load (V2L) support.

While the styling has been under wraps until now, it was previewed with the Concept CLA unveiled at the 2023 Munich motor show in Germany, and Mercedes began relating the technology story last year.

The showroom-ready design is true to the concept’s shape, but some detailing has been toned down. The production car has smaller wheels, larger mirrors, and visible pop-out door handles. But the star-patterned grille and light signatures of the design study have survived.

There’s another contributor to this third generation CLA; that’s the swoopy Vision EQXX concept, a radical electric study.

The range-topping four-wheel-drive model will be called the CLA 350 4Matic with EQ Technology and claims 0-100km in 4.9 seconds.

Equipped with a 200kW motor on the rear axle and another with 78kW at the front, it has a combined output of 260kW/515Nm and feeds from a 85kWh nickel manganese cobalt battery.

The front motor can automatically decouple in 200 milliseconds for improved efficiency.

Versions with this battery are first in production. The rear-drive types are rated - depending on equipment - to enable 694km to 792km of driving range, as tested to the WLTP scale that is now the New Zealand standard, and 672km to 771km with all-wheel drive.

The base CLA 250 Plus with EQ Technology is rear-wheel drive, with a 58kWh lithium iron phosphate battery feeding a 200kW/335Nm rear motor, claimed to achieve 0-100kmh in 6.7s.

For improved efficiency, Mercedes-Benz will adopt the cell-to-pack (CTP) production principle, also used by Tesla, to integrate the cells directly into the battery pack – rather than placing the cells inside modules, which are subsequently mounted within the pack.

Benz is confident that, beyond its dynamic credentials and straight-line performance, CLA will steal sales from its rivals because of its cruising efficiency.

It uses a two-speed gearbox similar to the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT to improve acceleration and efficiency, with the second gear ratio used for highway driving.

Mercedes reckons on an overall efficiency of 12.2kWh/100km – among the best in the current electric-car market. Last year it did even better with a outright economy-driving effort on the Nardo test track in Italy. On that big oval the car reset the record for the the longest distance travelled by an EV in 24 hours: 3878 kilometres.

Minimising power wastage at a cruise is crucial to attaining that figure, but being able to charge at up to 320kW was also a proven plus, as it dramatically reduced time spent idle.

The motor technology developed in-house is also Green-tinged, in that it is free of rare earth materials. Regenerative braking technology can feed energy back into the battery at up to 200kW, with four modes selectable with steering wheel paddles.

The combustion version pairs a 1.5-litre petrol four-cylinder M252 FAME engine with a small electric motor in the gearbox for claimed ‘diesel levels of efficiency’. It's due to hir production around six months after the EV.

Benz has previously said the 1.5-litre be offered in three tunes at launch – 100kW, 120kW or 140kW – with standard front-wheel drive and optional '4Matic' all-wheel drive, paired to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. A full set of outputs will be announced later this year.

The 48-volt mild-hybrid system uses a gearbox-mounted integrated starter motor to trim fuel economy and carbon emissions – while providing a small boost under hard acceleration.

Mercedes-Benz says the petrol CLA will meet the Euro 7 emissions standard, with a 12:0:1 compression ratio, Miller combustion cycle, 1.3kWh battery with an integrated DC-DC converter, regenerative braking, and the ability to drive with electricity only at low speeds.

CLA follows the concept car with up to three screens on the dashboard: an instrument cluster, a central infotainment touchscreen, and a front passenger display (though that;’s optional).

It debuts Mercedes-Benz Operating System, a new software package claimed to control everything from the multimedia screen to the car's driver-assistance technology and drivetrain.

This proprietary “chip-to-cloud” system has improved smartphone mirroring, downloadable applications, and full integration with electric drive systems.

MBUX Virtual Assistant, represented by a "living" avatar, uses AI from Microsoft (ChatGPT and Bing) and Google (Gemini) for enhanced interaction, internet knowledge, and navigation.

Mercedes-Benz's MBUX Superscreen is a new version, behind a glass panel stretching across the dashboard. This includes a 10.25-inch instrument display and 14-inch central infotainment touchscreen at launch. The third 14-inch touchscreen for the front passenger, pictured below, is an option that won’t initially avail.

Over-the-air software updates allow the ‘entire vehicle software’ to be updated remotely, including the safety technology, and the system is said to consume less energy than those in earlier Mercedes-Benz cars.

Last year Benz shared that the CLA will include ‘Level 2 Plus’ semi-autonomous driving technology at launch; the concept uses ‘Level 3’ but this will not be offered in the initial showroom version.

Level 2 Plus allows for additional hands-free features – such as automated lane changes – but the driver remains in full legal control of the vehicle, while under Level 3 drivers can legally take their hands off the steering wheel and eyes off the road in certain environments.

More clarity about this has unveiled with the overnight launch announcement.

Benz says adaptive cruise control, lane centring assist and assisted lane changes activated by the indicator stalk, as part of a safety suite known as MB.Drive Assist, is standard to Europe.

It will subsequently implement fully-automatic lane changes – which will not require the driver to touch the indicator stalk – as well as more sophisticated adaptive cruise control software.

Some markets will also achieve “new assistance functions in urban traffic” - odds are on this being a more advanced semi-autonomous driving system.

A child presence detection system will be fitted to the CLA with sensors and cameras to detect breathing patterns when the vehicle is locked.

The vehicle will trigger the air-conditioning and sound the horn when it detects movement if the driver does not respond to initial warnings from the car.