The new electric Mercedes-Benz CLA is ready for America, and while it does have a face like a large-mouth bass and an interior like a gentlemen’s club, it also promises 317 miles of range for $48,500. That sounds like a solid deal on paper, but the story doesn’t quite end there. While it’s not uncommon for base-model luxury cars to be a bit spartan when it comes to equipment for the money, the CLA takes things to another level by making you pay for stuff already installed on the car.
For a start, $50 for a front seat massage function seems like a good deal until you realize it’s just manipulating the lumbar support already built into each front seat. Mercedes-Benz could’ve just thrown in that software for free, considering it won’t need updating and uses existing hardware, but no. It’s locked behind a microtransaction. Likewise, Mercedes-Benz wants to charge you $200 to use a dashcam already fitted to the vehicle. You know what comes standard with a built-in dash cam? The new Toyota RAV4, and it’s far less expensive than the new CLA.
Oh, and the paywalls continue. Using hardware already baked into the car, Mercedes-Benz charges $1,950 for a “Digital Extra” package that includes lane keep assistance and automated lane changes when you flick your turn signal on and the coast is clear. You know, things that simply use the car’s onboard sensor suite. In contrast, Hyundai’s Highway Driving Assist 2 bundles both those features but doesn’t require a subscription. It’s simply standard equipment on SEL and higher Ioniq 5 electric crossovers and Ioniq 6 electric sedans. Considering an Ioniq 6 SEL RWD stickers for $1,655 less than a zero-option CLA 250+, which is a physically larger car, still offers 291 miles of range and bundles in the sort of ADAS that Mercedes-Benz charges extra for, the Hyundai actually seems like a more premium experience on paper than the Mercedes-Benz.
That’s not the most expensive ADAS option for the new CLA, however. A subscription package costing $3,950 for three years bundles those systems in with one that claims to automatically brake for red lights and stop signs when motoring along on adaptive cruise control. Someone has to maintain a database of stop sign and traffic light locations, so a subscription for this function does make a degree of sense. However, when you look at the pricing of other cloud-assisted advanced driver assistance systems, Mercedes-Benz’s pricing seems fantastical. Let’s look at Ford first.
Every Ford Mustang Mach-E crossover is available with BlueCruise highway driving assistance, and not only is Ford’s BlueCruise geofenced, relying on Lidar-scanned maps beamed in from a server, it’s also hands-free on controlled access highways. A driver monitoring camera on the steering column makes sure you’re paying attention, and the result is an ADAS experience that’s exceptionally good. Oh, and it’s substantially less expensive than the top-spec ADAS subscription on the new Mercedes-Benz CLA. Three years of BlueCruise will run you $1,485, and a lifetime purchase of the system costs $2,495.
However, BlueCruise isn’t the original hands-free highway ADAS system. That would be GM’s Super Cruise, which can now be used when towing a trailer and overtake slower vehicles without the need for turn signal input. Like BlueCruise, it relies on both the vehicle’s sensor suite and beamed-in Lidar maps, and since someone needs to update and expand those maps, a subscription isn’t uncalled for. So, what’s the damage? Well, Super Cruise is free for the first three years, then $39.99 per month after that. Extrapolate that out to three years, and you’re looking at $1,439.64 for 36 months of additional Super Cruise. Again, less than half what Mercedes-Benz wants for its top-spec ADAS system in the CLA.
There’s nothing luxurious about getting nickel and dimed for features already supported by a car’s standard hardware, and the price of the top-level ADAS subscription seems out to lunch once you look at what the competition offers. While premium pricing for physical options has always been a thing in the luxury car space, Mercedes-Benz charging more for software-enabled functions because it can runs the risk of rubbing consumers the wrong way.
Top graphic image: Mercedes-Benz
Hard pass on anything from Mercedes in America during the past decade plus.
-former Mercedes Benz owner
Breaking News: Mercedes costs more than Ford and GM.
Why are we surprised? It has been like this since forever.
One time higher prices for options have been a thing for history of cars. Monthly fees for stuff built-in makes one want to burn the world.
I don’t don’t agree that paying a flat $2k for some ADAS functions is necessarily a problem. Those features are not just some simple hardware that only needs trivial software programming to work, it’s very advanced safety-critical piece of software that’s a larger undertaking than making an infotainment system. Not all companies even offer these features yet, and Hyundai simply absorbs the cost by giving you an explodey engine.
Nah, screw that nonsense. It’s just gouging.
At the end of the warranty period, some of these features will probably stop working anyway. If you never had them in the first place, you won’t miss them.
The whole car looks chintzy, even without taking into account the nickel and diming. Never thought I would use that word to describe a MB product, but this is the world we live in I guess. Looks like a MB vinyl wrap poorly draped over a $10K BYD sedan, except BYD includes L2 assist in almost every car they sell, apart from the lowest-trim Seagull (some BYDs even come with unlocked Android infotainment, I managed to sideload VPNs and Youtube in China).
I’d gladly pay extra for a car with tons of usable buttons and great ergonomics; that’s what luxury means to me in 2025. But this…… I won’t shed a tear when MB gets gobbled up by Geely.
And this is why I’ll never get a modern MB.
MBZ lost me at the exterior styling – which is half-fish and half 1999 Ford ZX2.
Don’t get me started on the Ginza-By-Night dash and any-color-you-want-as-long-as-it’s-black interior.
Hard Pass.
Here’s the devils advocate argument I’ll throw out there, not that I fully agree with it, but it’s a somewhat reasonable counter argument:
The hardware is there yes, but adding functionality to that hardware is not inherently free. It costs money to develop software. Many of the features paywalled here are features added to a bit of hardware that already does something else in the car, so it’s not “dead-weight” hardware like the now-scrapped BMW heated seat subscription where the seat heaters only have one function but are software on-off enabled.
While the hardware exists, it does cost extra for the manufacturer to develop extra features for this hardware, and that cost of development has to be recouped somehow.
There are ways this can play out. 1: Higher MSRP with all the functionality built in by default, but makes the value proposition harder. 2: Add-on software package that costs money, but is not mandatory. 3: These features do not get added at all.
This cost of development is doubly true for things like ADAS, especially ones that get updated and improved over time. The cost to improve these systems is large, so while the hardware is in the car that you pay for up front, the cost to use that software-intensive feature is not necessarily fixed. So many industries (often not consumer facing) are moving to software-locked features with a set hardware set for this reason, it brings down hardware cost and manufacturing complexity, but incentivizes funding going to the software work of the most valued and desired features.
Don’t threaten me with a good time
M-B just beat me out of $100 for a year of traffic sign recognition. It was available permanently for $300.
I’m finding out way more annoying than helpful. No chance of me renewing it next year. I may turn it off and just be pissed about the wasted Benjamin.
Weren’t the “premium” brands the ones to start charging everyone for paint colours that weren’t Black or White?
My, how that’s proliferated quickly
At M-B, black and white are no-cost. The regular boring colors are a mere $750. The nice colors are $1,750 and $3,250.
It’s hard for me to get worked up about fading brand I will never consider, let alone buy. This is a case of the finance guys overruling the engineers and marketing folks.
Mercedes is cooked
Dear Mercedes-Benz AG,
Fuck you.
Sincerely,
Elhigh
Don’t forget Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC Corporate Headquarters in Atlanta, GA