The wait is over. Or at least the announcement part of the wait. Mercedes has pulled the curtain off the all-electric CLA 45. It’s got 500kW of power. Three motors. A top speed of 270km/h. And yes. They’re piping fake engine noise right into the cabin.
“Authentic vibrations.” That’s the pitch.
It looks like a Mercedes. It drives like an AMG. It sounds like a memory of petrol engines past.
Specs that ignore gravity
500kW. That number sits on paper next to 1759Nm of torque. The old petrol CLA 45 pushed out 310kW. This new beast nearly doubles it. It hits 100km/h in 3.0 seconds. The petrol version did it in 4.1. A second is a long time when you’re launching into oncoming traffic.
It’s heavier though. 2295kg against 1687kg for the old car. Physics usually objects to that much extra mass but AMG doesn’t really ask physics for permission. The wheelbase grew by 61mm. The whole car is bigger. Longer. Wider. Taller.
The body styles? Sedan. Shooting Brake (the wagon version). Australia gets the sedan in 2027. Pricing hasn’t leaked. Expect it to land around the same $130k mark the petrol version hit before costs were added. Mercedes-Benz Australia is still thinking about whether to send the wagon down under. We’ll see.
Three motors. One very loud simulation.
Here is where it gets weird. The car has three electric motors. Axial-flux types. Compact. Lighter than normal stuff. One sits up front. Two sit on the rear axle sharing a housing.
The front motor acts as a boost unit. 225kW. But it can disconnect. So the car can drive like a rear-wheel-drive machine if you want that sliding feel. Or stay AWD. Torque vectoring handles the rest.
Range is decent. 640km for the sedan. 670km for the wagon. WLTP numbers of course. Charge it up to 80% in 22 minutes with a 330kW DC charger. Ten minutes of juice gets you another 270km. That’s actually useful for road trips.
Then there is the sound. AMG says it isn’t “synthetic”. They used 13 microphones on an A45 S turbo four. Recorded the screams. The whines. Now when you pick AMGFORCE S+ mode you hear it. Plus you feel it. Seat shakers vibrate in sync with the “gear shifts”. It’s an internal combustion hallucination. Some will love it. Others might prefer the silence of electric.
Inside the glass box
The cabin is all screens now. The 14.0-inch MB Superscreen dominates. It runs the new MB.OS system. Artificial intelligence connects here too. ChatGPT. Google Gemini. Microsoft Bing. It feels like a laptop you sit inside.
Suspension is stiff. As expected. Adaptive dampers. Forged aluminium links in the front. You can tune the steering, brakes, and regen recovery. Six drive modes come standard. Race mode comes with the optional Dynamic Plus package. That package also gives you painted brake calipers and unlocks the extra top speed.
Red seatbelts are an option. Black seats. Green accents. It’s aggressive interior styling meant to distract from the fact you aren’t revving an engine.
Who cares about fake noises anyway. The performance is real. The car is fast. The battery is big enough for a holiday. It just needs to find a price tag that convinces the local market to buy the dream.
