I Drove Mercedes’ New EV With A Silicon Anode Battery. The Future Is Here

I couldn't help but roll my eyes when Mercedes-Benz first unveiled the all-electric CLA last year. What on Earth were those 142 illuminated stars doing on the grille? The automaker has admitted the industry had gone too far with giant screens and fewer buttons, so why did the new CLA still come with a humongous, pillar-to-pillar “Superscreen?"

From the photos alone, I wasn't convinced that the CLA could be the electric hit Mercedes needs right now. The German automaker has been losing ground to increasingly competitive Chinese rivals, and its first wave of EQ-branded EVs with their computer-mouse-like designs didn't exactly take off. The CLA, then, is meant to be a fresh start, the first in a new generation of software-defined, higher-tech EVs.

But when Mercedes handed me the keys to a CLA 350 Electric for a week, the car proved me dead wrong. The CLA is lovely to drive and the all-wheel-drive 350 delivers serious performance. Its range comfortably blew past the EPA rating, and charging stops were astonishingly quick, thanks to the new silicon-containing battery.

This compact luxury sedan has plenty of flaws, too. The software doesn't feel class leading, and I question some of its interior design choices. But the fundamentals are so strong that most of those drawbacks felt trivial to me. It’s an excellent EV, but not necessarily a great Mercedes-Benz. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Let’s dive right in.

New-Generation Battery Cells

At the heart of the CLA are Mercedes-Benz's new-generation battery cells that use a silicon-oxide and graphite blend in the anode, the electrode that stores lithium ions during charging. I found the CLA to be a strong performer in both range and charging performance, and Mercedes attributes that to the new batteries.

Traditionally, graphite has been the go-to anode material in batteries, but automakers are increasingly incorporating silicon to boost energy density and charging speed. They're also trying to reduce their reliance on graphite; China dominates processing of the material, and it's dirty and expensive to mine. Mercedes said the new cells improve energy density by 20% while also reducing cobalt content.

The rear-wheel-drive CLA 250's EPA-estimated 374 miles of range should be more than enough for most drivers. The all-wheel drive 350 is rated for 312 miles, but its real-world range is much higher. I didn't do a full-blown range test, but I did see an impressive 4.2 miles per kilowatt-hour across mostly highway driving in Sport mode in fall weather. With 85 kilowatt-hours of usable battery capacity, that works out to roughly 357 miles on a full charge, about 45 miles beyond its 312-mile EPA estimate.

Plenty of electric sedans offer more range than the CLA, including the Lucid Air, Audi A6 e-tron, and new BMW i3. But those are all a bit bigger and not exactly apples-to-apples rivals.

Charging performance is similarly impressive, even if it's nothing like the fastest-charging EVs in the U.S. I put it through a 16-80% and a 16-90% charging test at a 400-kilowatt Mercedes-Benz High Power Charging station in Livingston, New Jersey. The press car had Plug & Charge enabled, so the session started almost immediately after I connected the cable to its factory-fitted Tesla-style NACS charging port.

Gallery: 2027 Mercedes-Benz CLA 350 4Matic Electric

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Source: Suvrat Kothari

Within seconds, the CLA was pulling a peak of 280 kW. It added 100 miles of indicated range in just five minutes. After 14 minutes, it had gained 200 miles, and it reached 80% state of charge in exactly 20 minutes, adding 254 miles of indicated range in that time. The really remarkable part came next. The CLA reached 90% in just 26 minutes, adding nearly 300 miles of indicated range over the session.

With that kind of performance, the car may be ready to leave a charging stop before you've even finished grabbing a coffee or snack. Spend too long inside, and you may be paying for charging that you don't need.

How It Feels To Drive

Most EVs use a single-speed reduction gear, but the CLA is among a small group of electric cars—alongside the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron GT—to feature a two-speed transmission. Mercedes says the setup delivers the best of both worlds. First gear provides punchy acceleration from a standstill while also being suited to lower-speed driving. Second gear takes over at higher speeds, helping sustain power delivery and improve efficiency during highway cruising.

In practice, I barely noticed the gear changes. According to our previous tests by my colleagues Andrei Nedelea and Editor-in-Chief Mack Hogan, the transmission shifts into second gear at around 60-65 miles per hour. My testing routes had speed limits of 60 mph or lower, so I suspect I spent much of my time in first gear. Either way, you never have to think about the gearbox. The CLA is buttery-smooth to drive, and that's what matters.

Photo by: Suvrat Kothari

The CLA 350's 349 horsepower and 380 pound-feet of torque get unleashed instantly and aggressively. The throttle response is sharp, and a firm squeeze of the pedal releases a forceful surge of acceleration.

It loves the twisty back roads, too. It doesn't feel quite as light on its feet as its compact dimensions might suggest, and its heft is definitely noticeable in corners. But the chassis is responsive, with enough agility to make a winding road feel entertaining. The steering is light but direct, and the car settled into corners with reassuring stability rather than feeling unsettled by quick direction changes.

That said, the CLA is tuned more for comfort than spirited driving. Its suspension does a decent job of keeping the body controlled, but I'd have liked a little more compliance over broken pavement. The uneven, cratered roads of the tri-state area aren't exactly a German luxury sedan's natural habitat, and the CLA can feel a little busy over successive bumps. It isn't quite the plush, cosseting experience I'd expect from a Mercedes, but it strikes a solid balance between body control and everyday comfort.

Its four regenerative braking settings also offer something for every type of driver: Coasting, Normal, Intelligent, and Strong. Intelligent adjusts the regen strength based on traffic whereas Strong is the most aggressive and allows true one-pedal driving. It makes your head toss forward, but once you learn to modulate the throttle that becomes a non-issue.

Photo by: Suvrat Kothari

The MB.Drive Assist Pro advanced driver assistance system wasn't enabled on my CLA 350 Electric tester. This is Mercedes' answer to Tesla's Full Self-Driving (Supervised), offering point-to-point hands-on assisted driving that we tested in California last year. At the time, Mercedes said that it would be available later this year. My tester came with the standard MB.Drive Assist, which includes lane centering, adaptive cruise control, and automatic lane changes.

The automatic lane-change function gave me a few scares during my test. The system initiated maneuvers when other vehicles were uncomfortably close, including attempts to move into lanes where cars were just a few feet ahead. On several occasions, I had to abort the maneuvers. I disabled system-initiated lane changes and switched to activating them manually with the turn signal.

Interior And Technology

Slip inside the CLA and you're smacked in the face by the MBUX Superscreen, an evolution of the Hyperscreen setup found in the EQE and EQS. It combines two 14-inch displays, one for the central infotainment system and another for the front passenger, with a separate 10.25-inch digital instrument cluster. The screens are crisp and responsive for the most part, although I did notice occasional frame drops.

Photo by: Suvrat Kothari

The central screen is packed with genuinely useful features. The native navigation supports EV-specific route planning, automatically incorporating charging stops into longer journeys. The interface itself feels like using an iPhone, with a familiar app-based layout and plenty of functionality beyond the usual navigation and media controls. You get the Vivaldi web browser, streaming apps, a calendar, Microsoft Teams, and games such as Angry Birds and Beach Buggy, among others.

The passenger display was another story; I wasn't sold. My friends, however, loved it. They argued that it gives the front passenger something to do on long journeys, helps keep them engaged, and makes the drive feel less monotonous. Fair enough. Mercedes also said its latest voice assistant is its most capable yet, integrating ChatGPT and Microsoft Bing to handle conversational commands and answer general questions.

The more frustrating omissions are the little things that should be second nature in a car at this price. There's no dedicated media toggle or track-skipping switch on the steering wheel. Want to skip a song? You'll have to navigate the touchscreen, taking your eyes off the road, or use voice commands.

The window switches are another ergonomic misstep. Mercedes gives you just two physical switches on the driver's door, along with a separate button to toggle between the front and rear windows. Needlessly cumbersome. It's these smaller compromises which left me the most frustrating. When you add them all up, the CLA feels less like great Mercedes-Benz, even though it gets the fundamentals of being an EV remarkably right.

There's another catch with the Superscreen. It comes as part of the nearly $6,000 “Pinnacle” package—my tester was loaded with roughly $16,000 in options—which also bundles features such as a powered trunk, a head-up display, and adaptive headlamps. Without it, the passenger display is replaced by a glossy black panel decorated with dozens of Mercedes stars, looking like a very expensive chopping board.

Things I think are worth it include the $750 Sky Blue Metallic exterior paint and the $1,750 Beech Brown leather interior. The blue is a particularly attractive shade that suits the CLA's sleek proportions, and I'd consider it money well spent. The brown leather also lends the cabin a warmer, more upmarket ambience than spartan dark interior.

Photo by: Suvrat Kothari

What you can’t do much about is interior space. The CLA has never been the most spacious Mercedes, and this latest generation doesn't fundamentally change that, despite riding on the all-new, software-defined Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA), which also supports a hybrid powertrain. Taller passengers will find the rear bench cramped. And while the cabin is full of high-quality materials, some of the hard plastic trim around the rear air vents felt out of place.

The 10.3-cubic-foot trunk is also relatively modest, with enough room for a large suitcase and a few smaller bags, but not much more. Fortunately, the EV-first platform has enabled a sizable frunk, which can easily accommodate a carry-on suitcase and a few other small items.

Mercedes-Benz CLA 350 Electric: Verdict

By the end of my week with the CLA, most of its shortcomings had stopped bothering me. I got used to the awkward window-switch arrangement, and I stopped caring about those rather horrendous stars on the grille. In fact, they grew on me. They also attracted plenty of attention in Manhattan, especially at night, when the illuminated details made the CLA hard to miss. Plus, it's not even the gaudiest Mercedes fascia on sale. Just look at the new GLS, and you’ll gain some appreciation for the sedan.

Its compact footprint made navigating the city and squeezing into street parking spots an absolute breeze. Of course, the cramped rear seat means the CLA Electric is more of a 2+2 than a proper five-seater. It’s more suited to couples with two kids or a group of four average-sized adults. And the ride quality is another area where the CLA falls short of the comfort and refinement you'd normally associate with that three-pointed star.

Photo by: Suvrat Kothari

What really won me over, though, was how much better the CLA's performance, range, charging capabilities, and software experience were than I'd expected. It gets the fundamentals of being an EV remarkably right, making long drives less stressful and everyday city driving refreshingly easy. That’s far more important to me than a few questionable design choices inside. It also doesn’t have any direct rivals, sitting in a league of its own as a luxury compact sedan.

The car's $51,850 starting price—with destination fees and without options—makes it only about $2,500 more expensive than a Model 3 Premium all-wheel drive. For that money, the Mercedes is a substantially superior EV. It will give you a sense of occasion that the Model 3 will never match. The all-electric Lexus ES also has a similar starting price as the CLA and is roomier inside, with a business-class-like rear seat. But its range, charging speeds, and overall software experience can't hold a candle to the CLA.

More than anything, the CLA gives me reason to be optimistic about Mercedes-Benz's electric future. The automaker's earlier EQ models never quite delivered on their promise, but this feels like a genuine step forward. It's a remarkable comeback, and a sign that Mercedes is finally heading in the right direction.

Contact the author: Suvrat.Kothari@InsideEVs.com

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