2025 Mercedes-Benz CLA Electric | First Impressions | PowerDrift QuickEase
[Music] Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of Power Drift Quick Eies. We are not in India. We’ve unlocked a new location, a new country, at least for me. This is Denmark. This behind me is Copenhagen. And this is a brand new car. That’s the new Mercedes-Benz CLA. Now, we haven’t had the CLA in India for a couple of years. We had the Aclass sedan sort of taking up its space, but this is coming back to India very, very soon. That said, it’s coming back not as a petrol and diesel power and certainly not as an AMG anytime soon. It’s coming back as an electric H. I know how some of you feel about electric cars, but nonetheless, this is the CLA 250 plus. This is the version that’s coming to India. And if you wanted a small sedan that’s rear wheel drive and it’s also like a coupe and it’s got pillarless doors like these, this is the perfect car for you. Of course, as I said, it is electric, but we’ll get to that, okay, in a bit. Let’s talk about the styling first. Let’s talk about the front end because that is of course the first thing you see in a car and that in this is a bit controversial because some of you guys on one of the reels I did earlier seem to love it or seem to hate it. Now good design frankly is always controversial. It’s always supposed to be a love it or hated thing. Not supposed to be boring and this isn’t boring, right? 142 small little stars in the grill and if you count the big one here it’s 143. This is 144. If you count these two in the headlights, that’s 45 and 46. And then you’ve got the badges in the wheels. So 47, 48, 49, and 50, of course, the sides. And then 151 151 badges on the outside of this car. It’s crazy. Oh, by the way, 152 153 153 badges. Now, let’s talk about the rear end, considering the fact that we are here. In fact, I’ll just let the camera be here for just one second. There we go. Now the lights are on. Now you can actually see what it looks like. This is interesting because what Mercedes does normally in their connected light technology thing, connected light design thing is a horizontal light bar, right? That’s what everybody does. Little boring now. So what they’ve done is they made these vertical slats, 42 of them to be precise. And frankly, this actually looks much better than a lot of the other stuff out there because it just sort of freshens things up a little bit. This particular car is the AMG spec which is probably what you might get in India. So you get slightly nicer bumpers and you’re getting these little vents right here and you get AMG badges or AMG branding on the wheels. Frankly though, these don’t look like AMG wheels to me. But overall, if you really look at a design from like a far away thing, they might. Right. What else is new? No, what else is old? Because look at this. That CLA profile is continuously the same. It’s been the same since the first generation. Of course, this is of course a taller car. I believe it’s some 3 cm taller than the last gen CLA which we didn’t get in India. But overall, the original profile of the CLA, the four-door coupe profile, I made a mistake. This four-door coupe profile, remember coups are for chicken coupes and cars. The four-door coupe design has stayed true. And of course, you’ve got a really nice looking overall car. Again, I know some of you guys hate the way it looks. I frankly think it’s quite nice looking. Nice color, too. And of course, you got these sort of flush door handles, which are now getting more and more common across cars. That’s about all there is to the outside. Again, tell me what you think in the comment section about what uh what you think about the way it looks. Now, let’s go to the inside. But before we do, just want to quickly sort of brush upon a couple of things. Right, I’m going to put out some figures right here. So that’s the range right here. Look, that’s a lot of kilometers, more than 700 km. And that’s the battery capacity that’s coming to India 85 kW. That’s a lot again. And overall, here are some more facts and figures, right? Facts and figures right here. Cool. We can’t talk about how it drives yet. There is going to be a full-fledged review that drops on this sometime next week. So have a look at that when it comes. Okay, let’s move to the inside because that’s where the niceness is. Right, so interiors, brand new but still familiar, right? The sort of round vents which came on the CLA back in 2013, 2014 and the A-class before it have continued. So all you Thar lovers who put these in their thighs, they’re going to be happy that these still exists. And of course, there going to be new designs in THAR coming forward. You get a 10-in display here, which again is something we’ve seen before. You get a 14-in display here and then you get a blank space on the right side. Now, this space might actually be a display when it makes it to India. Might not be. There is an option to put a screen here as well. But there’s a brand new OS on the screen um in its case. So, although it’s got like a native map running right now, it actually piggybacks off Google. See this? The Google map location, the Google map logo. So, it’s all updated. It’s all live and it’s all really quick. And overall, even the OS in general seems like they’ve taken what they’ve learned and what people like from Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and sort of put it into this. Now, again, as I mentioned, this is the AMG spec uh sort of design spec. So, you get a flat bottom steering wheel, you get the split AMG steering wheel, and you also get a slightly updated volume control. So, there’s more space now to sort of swipe, which means it’s easier to use. Overall though, as with any entry- level Mercedes, there are a couple of plasticky bits that are sort of average, but on the whole, this thing feels really solid. There’s a camera here you can take selfies with. Frankly, I don’t know why you need to do that or why there is one in general that is needed, but anyways, that’s what this is. And then if you can just move to the sort of uh door uh seat controllers there. Look how that looks like a lounge chair on the normal on normal MKs. Most smoks it looks like a normal seat like you control it. You control it from here. It’s been around for a long long time. Now it looks like a lounge seat. It looks like really cool sort of angled thing. So I think that looks really nice. You know how I like little details. That detail I like. Let’s quickly see what the space is like in the deer. Now someone like me to get in and out is a bit of a problem because goods. But overall there is more space than any other CLA in the past. That doesn’t mean there’s a lot of space. There’s still not a lot of I mean there is some leg room, but the seat in general, the bottom of the seat isn’t very large. So, you still have sort of your legs hanging off it. And because of the electric battery, which is below this, it’s a big 10 cm battery. It’s like this big, right? The floor is actually quite high. So, you do sit a little bit more upright in terms of your legs, but you do get this gigantic panoramic sunroof as standard on every single variant. Look at it. Massive. It doesn’t have a button that sort of makes it translucent or doesn’t have a cloth partition that shuts and sort of closes out blocks out the sun, but overall you do get a little bit more head space, but on the other hand, if you do have a bump that you go over really, really hard, you will whack your head on that glass. That said, as you expect in a CLA, not a lot of space, but it’s okay. Not exactly the best car to be shower driven around in, but you will find a lot of people actually get chauffeur driven around in one of these cuz remember this is still the entry-level Mercedes which means there are people who are going to buy it. A lot of people I’m guessing also this is still going to be a CVU. Now remember this makes it to India now in about a few months maybe till the end of the year December November December at about 60 lakh rupees and goes up against a whole slew of other cars and if Tesla’s there by then which we really don’t know if they’re going to be or not it goes up against the Model 3 that’s the really important one that sort of Mercedes is banking on but if you really want a petrol powered one there is one coming sometime next year that is going to be a hybrid version now that has a 1.5 L engine under the bonnet here and in that. Let me show you one more quick thing. This is the first modern Mercedes to get a frunk. And why I say modern is because in the 1930s there was something called a W23 which had a rear engine which had front storage space. Not a lot. 101 L of storage space, but enough to put a couple of backpacks or one overnight bag or even something larger. And of course, charging cables if you really need them. Right, there we go. This is the new Whoops. This is the new Mercedes-Benz CLA with EQ technology. Controversial styling, yes, I know. Electric, yes, I know some people may not like it, but it is coming to India. And frankly, I think as an entry- level Mercedes product, it is rather cool. There you go then. Another episode of Quickies. Stay tuned for more on the power channel. There’ll be a drive review, as I mentioned, coming very, very soon with some really, really cool shots and music and stuff like that. For now, though, I’m signing off. Bye-bye from Copenhagen. There’s a semi- new statue behind me. I’m going to go ahead and have a bit of a look on the boats and see if I can steal one.
The Mercedes-Benz CLA is back — but this time, it’s all-electric. We travelled to Copenhagen, Denmark to check out the new CLA 250+ with EQ Technology, the same version expected to arrive in India soon.
This entry-level EV sedan blends bold styling, pillarless doors, an interior with a massive panoramic sunroof, and over 700km of claimed range. But is it still a true CLA? And should Tesla be worried?
Join Cyrus as he walks you through key design changes, standout features, interior tech, practicality, and what’s new under the bonnet — including a rare appearance of a frunk on a modern Mercedes!
📍 Full review and drive impressions coming soon. Subscribe and stay tuned!
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