There is a car that arrives like an invitation not to choose. No longer the ethical dilemma between gasoline and pure electric, no longer the guilt of the tank or the anxiety of range. The new Mercedes CLA mild hybrid at 48 volts, the one with 163 horsepower (but also 136 or 190, depending on how much you want to have fun at the wheel), presents itself as the peaceful synthesis of two worlds that until now looked at each other with hostility. A mild hybrid, a middle way that knows how to travel electrically in the city, glide up to one hundred per hour with the thermal engine off and recover energy in all eight gears.
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It costs less than 50 thousand euros. It’s not little, of course, but Mercedes has never claimed to be democratic.
The range
It offers four trims – Advanced, Advanced Plus, Premium, Premium Plus – and the possibility to customize yourself until you become almost unrecognizable. It has the proportions of a four-door coupe, almost four meters and seventy long, athletic and a bit arrogant in the illuminated grille that at night looks like a courtesy smile. Inside, three screens occupy the dashboard as if the cabin were a financial consulting office. The virtual assistant speaks with the artificial intelligence of Microsoft and Google, and behaves like a friend who already knows what you are about to ask. Over-the-air updates, onboard supercomputer, smart cloud. The car stays young for years, they say. Like a smartphone, but heavier and with heated seats.
The technology
The engine is a 1.5 turbo four-cylinder that works according to that clever system that closes the intake valves earlier to consume less when power is not needed. Paired with an electric motor of about thirty horsepower inserted inside an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission. The battery is small, 1.3 kWh, but for a mild hybrid it is already generous. Result: five liters or slightly less every hundred kilometers. Mercedes calls it the most efficient internal combustion engine in the segment. One could almost believe it, sitting at the wheel, while the car switches from electric silence to the discreet roar of the thermal engine without anyone noticing. Comfort, precision, contained roll. It drives well. It drives almost too well, as if the car had already decided for you where to put the wheels.
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Of course, the back is a bit tight because the elegantly arched roof, very elegant and beautiful, steals headroom from the rear passengers. The ceiling handles are missing. There are only two windows, with a passage from front to back that seems like a riddle. Small things, one might say. And it’s true because overall this remains a car that promises refinement, intelligence, and flexibility. Including the wonderful and now classic gear lever on the steering column, freeing the central tunnel and giving a very Rolls Royce golden years feel.
The strategy
Mathias Geisen, marketing manager, says that now customers have more flexibility in choosing the CLA that best suits their lifestyle. It is a correct phrase that hides the desire not to completely give up the pleasure of the combustion engine, not to feel ready yet for the definitive leap into pure electric. So the CLA mild hybrid is the perfect car for those who do not want to change habits. For those who want efficiency without ideology. For those who, deep down, prefer to travel rather than decide.
You get in, you start, you listen to the urban silence and then the light hum of acceleration. Outside the world keeps running, inside the car thinks, recovers, turns off and turns on again. And one wonders if, among so many screens and so much artificial intelligence, there is still room for the old, banal, wonderful thing you do in a car: driving…
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