Mercedes CLA 350 beats its EPA range by 73 miles at 70 mph

Highway range tests are where electric cars usually give ground. The dual-motor Mercedes CLA 350 4MATIC took some: 385 miles at a constant 70 mph against an EPA combined rating of 312. Tom Moloughney ran it overnight on the New Jersey Turnpike for his State of Charge channel, precisely so traffic could not spoil the cruise, and at 2 a.m. the car was still offering three indicated miles with an Electrify America stall eight away. He made it.

That is not a rounding error. It is 73 miles past the combined sticker, and closer to 80 past the 309-mile highway rating Moloughney read off the same car. “I really thought that if we ended up with 350 that would be a win,” he said after parking. “You just don’t see that often.”

Moloughney did not gift the result. He set the staggered 19-inch tyres to Mercedes’ 47 psi, locked Eco, held the climate at 72°F and drove the Turnpike after midnight so traffic would not spoil a 70 mph cruise. Consumption barely moved as the pack emptied: 4.50 miles per kilowatt-hour in the first quarter, 4.52 in the second, 4.46 in the third, 4.44 at the finish. He called it “a really incredibly efficient vehicle,” and noted that even his previous best, a Lucid Air Dream Edition at 4.3 mi/kWh, had never been threatened like this.

The EPA’s own sheet on fueleconomy.gov lists the 2027 CLA350 4matic with EQ Technology at 312 miles and 29 kWh per 100 miles. Moloughney’s 4.44 mi/kWh is closer to 22.5 kWh/100 miles. Edmunds, on a different 60/40 city-highway loop, also landed on 385 miles in a CLA 350 and 25.7 kWh/100 miles — 13 per cent better than the official consumption figure. Two outfits, two routes, the same extra 73 miles.

The US sticker looks even odder once you leave American test speeds. Bjørn Nyland put a CLA 350 4MATIC on his 90 and 120 km/h loops at 12°C, not summer. He recorded 141 Wh/km at 90 km/h — “really good considering that it’s only 12°C outside” — and 182 Wh/km at 120 km/h. On an earlier 1,000 km challenge he had measured 88 kWh of net capacity from a pack specified at 85, and wanted to see the figure again. The car, he said, still outranged a Tesla Model 3 Highland he had tested in warmer weather, “because we have a bigger battery in the CLA.” He guessed a 18–20°C rerun might break 700 km at the lower speed and 500 km at the higher one.

Thomas from Autogefühl, running a CLA 350 on German motorways, came back with the same plot in different units. A mixed Autobahn stint at up to 130–140 km/h averaged 17 kWh/100 km, which he translated as about 500 km, or 300 miles, on the 85 kWh pack. “Realistic German Autobahn 500 kilometres or 300 miles is a very impressive result,” he said. The channel’s co-presenter took the zeroed-out runs: 18 kWh/100 km held at a steady 130 km/h, worth about 470 km, and 13 kWh/100 km at 100 km/h. “That means when you go here 100 kilometres an hour, 60 miles an hour, you can have a realistic range of 650 kilometres or 410 miles,” the co-presenter added.

Norway’s NAF/Motor summer convoy, a mixed route out of Oslo until each car can no longer hold the speed limit, put the CLA 350 4MATIC third at 675 km (419 miles), behind only the BMW iX3 50 xDrive and the Lucid Gravity. That is a bigger battery in the BMW. The Mercedes was the one doing it on 85 kWh.

Mercedes put silicon carbide inverters, an 800-volt pack and a two-speed rear gearbox in a compact sedan. Car and Driver’s Dave VanderWerp ran the rear-drive CLA250+ — same battery, one fewer motor — against a Tesla Model 3 on a five-mile oval from 50 to 100 mph. Below 60 mph the Tesla used less energy, helped by 18-inch aero covers against the Mercedes’ optional 19-inch summers. Above about 65 mph the CLA upshifts, cutting motor speed by more than half; at 90 mph VanderWerp had the Mercedes motor at roughly 6,000 rpm and the Tesla at 10,000. The CLA closed the gap and nosed ahead at the top two speeds. On C/D’s 75 mph highway range test, that 250+ still did 340 miles against its 317-mile EPA figure. Moloughney points out that the same rear-drive car on 17-inch wheels with aero covers is rated at 374 miles combined; C/D did not have that version, and VanderWerp reckoned it might have gone 400.

Edmunds had already seen the rear-drive car go 434 miles on its mixed loop. Charging is the other half of the road-trip math: Mercedes quotes 320 kW peak and 10 to 80 per cent in about 22 minutes, which is the figure Moloughney repeated before plugging in for a 0 to 100 per cent map at Electrify America. Edmunds recorded a 349 kW peak, 29 kW over the brochure.

None of this makes the EPA number fake. It makes it a poor planning tool for this particular car. Highway tests usually punish electric range. The CLA 350 keeps finishing the other way around. If you are buying one, use 385 miles at 70 mph, 340-odd at 75 in the rear-drive car, and Autogefühl’s 470 km at a true German 130 as the working set. Treat 312 as the number on the window, not the one in the battery.