I drove the Car of the Year and found hybrid £20,000 cheaper better
Christopher Sharp with the award winning Mercedes CLA (Image: Christopher Sharp)
Earlier this year, the Mercedes-Benz CLA was named the European Car Of The Year 2026, a prestigious award that has been going since 1964. In the words of the official press release, the organisation said Europe had “chosen its king”.
The CLA, which can be purchased in both electric and non-electric form, scored 320 points from 59 jurors from 23 countries. It beat the likes of the Renault 4, Citroen C5 Aircross, Dacia Bigster, Fiat Grande Panda, Kia EV4, and Skoda Elroq. It was the first time Mercedes has won the award since the 450 SE/SEL won in 1974.
Given the CLA’s achievement, the Express was keen to find out what one was like to drive and we were lucky enough to spend three days with an electric variant of the car.
The Mercedes CLA Christopher tested was electric (Image: Christopher Sharp)
The specifications
Specifically, we had a CLA 250+ Electric AMG Line Premium Plus with an as-tested price of £53,300. Coming in Night black, it had 19 inch wheels with ARTICO man-made leather upholstery. In terms of infotainment it had a 14-inch central display that came with Mercedes’ virtual assistant alongside a 10.25inch driver display feature key information such as charge and speed etc.
Being the AMG Line Premium Plus, it also had a head-up display, thermotronic automatic climate control, a winter package, and ambient lighting. Up front it had a 101 litre frunk and at the rear it was a 405 litre boot.
In terms of the powertrain, the car had an 85.5 kWH battery with 268hp being driven through the rear wheels through a two speed gearbox.
All in, the specifications suggest the vehichle could go up to a top speed of 130mph with a claimed WLTP range of 452 miles, enough to get one from London to Brighton and back around eight times.
All this technology is wrapped in a body that is 4.7 metres (4,731mm) long and 2 metres wide (2,201mm) wide if you include the mirrors. The car itself is 1.4 metres (1,469mm) tall and has a wheelbase of 2.7 metres (2,790mmm).
The interior of the Mercedes CLA (Image: Christopher Sharp)
What’s it like to drive?
Well, it’s a small 268hp rear wheel drive saloon car which means it’s pretty good. It has good balance, the steering is direct and communicative. It rides very well over London lumps and bumps, it feels manoeuvrable and range anxiety wasn’t a problem during my time with it.
When I took it on the motorway it very easily handled some of the M25’s slightly bumpier stretches and it drowned out most of the road noise. The M25 has a particularly ridged section between the junction with the A3 and the one with the M23 – the one most people take to Gatwick Airport. In poor riding cars this makes you feel like the car and your teeth are falling apart or falling into smithereens, but in the CLA it was fine.
Mechanically, the car is good. Mercedes has done a very good job on the suspension, ride, and dynamics; but it wasn’t perfect. Operationally, there were a few things that led me to wonder why it had been given the award in the first place.
The boot of the Mercedes (Image: Christopher Sharp)
The issues
The first is the voice assistant that had a habit of randomly searching if you said something out loud. I said the word ‘toilet’ when thinking out loud about, you guessed it, the toilet and it searched for local public toilets. The same happened when I was commenting, out loud, that the traffic was bad or remembering that I needed to get some food when I got back from a drive; it was like the system was trying to be overly keen to help.
The second was the touchscreen; Mercedes I hope will soon cotton on to what other manufacturers like Kia, Hyundai, Fiat, and Alfa Romeo have – people like using buttons. I hope more of these make a return.
The third was that the boot aperture was quite small. I was surprised that the boot wasn’t a hatch, something that would allow an owner to get much larger items into the car.
The fourth was slightly more curious and admittedly a bit more niche. I was testing out the rear headroom, unsurprisingly not brilliant given the sloping roofline, when I tried to get out of the side door. It wouldn’t open because the childlocks were on. It wasn’t possible to disengage them via the infotainment, instead they were tiny unmarked switches on the inside of the door lining, the piece of metal where the door lock locks the car.
It didn’t have to remove any trim to access this, it was an exposed switch, just one that was very hard to find and only accessible by first getting out of the car through the front and opening the door from the outside.
Christopher Sharp with the Mercedes CLA (Image: Christopher Sharp)
Verdict – 7.5/10
Addressed separately, the above aren’t major complaints, but it underlines something acute about the Mercedes-Benz CLA. On paper and dynamically, it is a brilliant and effective car.
Be in no doubt of its comfort, efficiency, and handling, but to operate it’s not as good as rivals from BMW, Audi, or Alfa Romeo which simply outflank it by being easier cars to operate and therefore less irritating to live with day to day, which, at the end of said day, is a big factor in whether someone choses to buy a car in the first place.
Christopher Sharp with a Honda Civic (Image: Christopher Sharp)
The one I’d rather have
If we’re talking about hybrids, the CLA can come as a hybrid after all, it doesn’t hold a candle to Honda’s Civic which costs around £35,945.
Not only is it more engaging to drive, but by virtue of being a hatchback, it’s more practical too. Furthermore, the extra physical controls and lack of the automatic virtual assistant on the inside means it’ll probably be easier to live with too.
Earlier this year, at the SMMT Test Day, the Honda was my favourite car of the 15 I drove. I praised it for its handing, practicality, looks, and intelligent hybrid powertrain.
