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Much has been made of the fact that out of the gate the CLA EV supports only 800V DC Fast Charging. In the US this causes angst and quite probably as a direct response to this MB are making available from March (so my Dealer told me) the 400V DC option, at which time also the 22 kW AC charging option will be available. I could select for 22 kW back in September when ordering, but was subsequently told it would delay the build so I chose to drop it. In Belgium and Western Europe 800V Fast Charging is readily available. And the intelligent route planning that has specific knowledge of compatible Fast Charging along a long route makes long distance driving fairly straightforward. I discovered this driving a loaner EQA for a month before the CLA was delivered: a road trip to Frankfurt am Main and back from home in Flanders (Northern Belgium) involved a short stop for fast charging as travelling the entire journey on a single charge was simply not possible. This will not be the case with the CLA.
Quick recap: WLTP range is approximately 770 km. I have a roughly 30 minute daily commute each way to work with a mixture of town and motorway driving. I maintain a cabin temperature of 21 Celsius.
After 849 km and average temperatures between 14 and 7 degrees (day/night) and before heading into a cold snap with subzero overnight temperatures next week: 172 km remaining on 25% charge after typical mixed motorway and town driving => 688 km off a full charge. This result is consistent after 941 km at time of posting.
Tomorrow winter tyres will be fitted, so the combination will reduce the range for sure - will report back on the impact.
Winter tyres were fitted on 24th December. Since then the overnight temperatures are sub-zero and daytime high of just two or three degrees. I have not driven far since then, status below showing average consumption of 20.8 kWh/100km over 34.5 km. Overall, range is now showing as 412 km on 64% = 643 km at 100%. This represents nearly 40 km range dropped from the previous real-world experience of some 680 km at 100%. I do not think that I have driven nearly enough under the new conditions for this to be conclusive - will update further in due course.
Update: bang on 1000 km, winter tyres but only relatively little driving in recent days, and those overnight sub-zero temperatures and cold daytimes: roughly offering me 640 km on a full charge. (38100/59 = 645.763) I still believe it will trend a bit lower as the earlier better performance is averaged away, but nonetheless holding up pretty well I think.
The cold weather and a few short local journeys are pushing the 100% range down from 640 to 634. Back to work on Monday with continued cold temperatures, road trip to Germany on Wednesday starting from 100%.
Daytime temperatures have hovered around zero for the past few days, with a little snow today and more forecast for tomorrow morning. Put the car on to charge overnight to 100% prior to a couple of local journeys tomorrow morning before the drive to Germany. The app is showing a predicted 100% range of 610 km; external temperature is current -1 Celsius, with a cheerful comment in the Weather app saying " Feels Like: -7". Lovely!
Your AC charging speed seems low with 7KW. I have AC charged the car at 11KW and there is also a 22KW AC option available. Is that a wallbox issue?
Domestic wallbox max 7.4kW.
I did not wait for the 22kW option to be available (March) so have just the standard 11kW. So far all perfectly fine for me: charge at home overnight, or topup at 11kW AC, or fast charge as and when it might become strictly necessary.
Last edited by jbnCH; Jan 7, 2026 at 08:11 AM.
Reason: Fighting with Autocorrect changing wallbox to callbox!
If your departure schedule allows, you might want to activate the departure pre-entry climate control. If I recall correctly, that will also warm up the battery before you unplug, which will significantly affect your range. The car has to expend energy to warm the battery, and the internal resistance is high in a cold battery.
This might also work for the ad hoc pre-entry climate control, thought the benefit is a bit less if the car is unplugged when you activate it.
If your departure schedule allows, you might want to activate the departure pre-entry climate control. If I recall correctly, that will also warm up the battery before you unplug, which will significantly affect your range. The car has to expend energy to warm the battery, and the internal resistance is high in a cold battery.
This might also work for the ad hoc pre-entry climate control, thought the benefit is a bit less if the car is unplugged when you activate it.
Great tip - thank you! I do not know this. Had to stop once for a 15 minute fast boost to be able to arrive with 10%. A little disappointed but average temperature was -2.5 Celsius. Did not exceed 130 kmph on the Autobahn.
I reset after charging to 99% and here are the trips stats:
Great tip - thank you! I do not know this. Had to stop once for a 15 minute fast boost to be able to arrive with 10%. A little disappointed but average temperature was -2.5 Celsius. Did not exceed 130 kmph on the Autobahn.
I reset after charging to 99% and here are the trips stats:
Thanks for the real world efficiency number. 130 kmph in -2.5 deg celcius is pushing an EV pretty hard.
Return journey from Frankfurt this afternoon: charged this morning at a Fast Charger from 35% to 99%, starting from overnight temperature of -6 that rose to -3 during the morning. Charging took nearly 90 minutes.
We drove a more direct route and with a maximum outside temperature of 0, made it on a single charge - just: from 99% to 7%. I observed all speed limits and drove at 130 kmph on the open sections of the Autobahn. I think the kW/100km of 18.6 versus high 15 to just above 16 in regular mixed driving is pretty good considering the combination of speed and temperature.
For the record, now slow charging overnight back to 80%. I will charge again to 100% before leaving for the UK on Thursday.
Last edited by jbnCH; Jan 11, 2026 at 02:36 PM.
Reason: Underestimated remaining % charge LOL
Return journey from Frankfurt this afternoon: charged this morning at a Fast Charger from 35% to 99%, starting from overnight temperature of -6 that rose to -3 during the morning. Charging took nearly 90 minutes.
That was an odd choice. You would have been far more time efficient charging to 80%, then briefly charging a second time during the trip. Even better might have been to simply start driving and charge when the car was down to 15% or 20% and had time to prewarm the battery for more efficient (i.e., faster) charging. Would have cut your charging time to less than half what you took, and possibly much less. There really is little point spending 20 minutes to get an extra 15 miles of range when you could simply drive and recover it in a couple of minutes later during the drive when the battery level is less than 80% and charging power is higher.
I gather you do not use the intelligent routing and charging functions. I recently did a long trip that called for one additional stop of seven minutes to allow me the charge needed to complete the trip.
I do realize that the temptation to "fill the tank" is a strong ingrained habit, but it is one you need to get rid of when you switch to EVs. Took me a long time too, but once I realized that 80% limit was most time efficient and charging at home meant every day I was ready to go on long trips my charging wait time dropped substantially. Even multi day trips in charging deserts are not an issue with a couple of minutes planning. (Most chargers were near shopping I needed to do anyway, so I was not waiting while car was charging - instead sometimes I had to cut shopping short as the car finished before I did.)
That was an odd choice. You would have been far more time efficient charging to 80%, then briefly charging a second time during the trip. Even better might have been to simply start driving and charge when the car was down to 15% or 20% and had time to prewarm the battery for more efficient (i.e., faster) charging. Would have cut your charging time to less than half what you took, and possibly much less. There really is little point spending 20 minutes to get an extra 15 miles of range when you could simply drive and recover it in a couple of minutes later during the drive when the battery level is less than 80% and charging power is higher.
I gather you do not use the intelligent routing and charging functions. I recently did a long trip that called for one additional stop of seven minutes to allow me the charge needed to complete the trip.
I do realize that the temptation to "fill the tank" is a strong ingrained habit, but it is one you need to get rid of when you switch to EVs. Took me a long time too, but once I realized that 80% limit was most time efficient and charging at home meant every day I was ready to go on long trips my charging wait time dropped substantially. Even multi day trips in charging deserts are not an issue with a couple of minutes planning. (Most chargers were near shopping I needed to do anyway, so I was not waiting while car was charging - instead sometimes I had to cut shopping short as the car finished before I did.)
Thank you for the well-meant advice.
As those following my posts will realise, I am stress testing the performance of the car to get a baseline.
I did use intelligent routing on the way out, as well as with the loaner EQA the last time I did this journey. On this occasion it added 50 km to the route and of course I did a programmed quick stop for a few minutes in order to arrive with the programmed 10% remaining at end of journey.
For reasons that I do not care to share, I will do my best to avoid subjecting my passengers to an additional 30-45+ minutes break on the journey.
I am a physicist and understand well the battery principles that you describe. It’s just that sometimes real life and the theoretical ideal do not intersect.
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