If you’ve spent any time reading about the German automobile industry, you’ve probably heard the name Jürgen Resch. Resch is the head of a non-profit organization called Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), or Environmental Action Germany. He made headlines in 2018 after his organization sued automakers to hold them accountable for a ban on diesel cars in the country’s most polluted cities, and was among the first to take Volkswagen to court over its infamous diesel scandal.
These days, the DUH is focused on enforcing the EU’s upcoming ban on the sale of gas- and diesel-powered cars, while also holding companies throughout Germany accountable for stuff like “greenwashing,” a practice in which corporations tout their products as environmentally beneficial when, in many cases, they are not.
To give you an idea of the DUH’s goals, it sued Mercedes-Benz a few years back, accusing the brand “of infringing on people’s freedoms by exacerbating climate change,” according to Reuters. The suit demanded that Mercedes adhere to tighter emissions goals and commit to ending production of ICE-powered vehicles by 2030. The lawsuit was dropped in 2022, but the DUH plans to appeal that decision.
The DUH regularly tests cars to see if they hold up to their fuel consumption and emissions claims with the help of Axel Friedrich, an environmentalist who spent time at Germany’s Umwelt Bundesamt (UBA), the country’s federal environmental agency. German publication Manager Magazin describes him in a particularly threatening light:
Axel Friedrich (77), a former department head at the Federal Environment Agency, regularly measures everything that can be measured for environmental protection organizations, including the German Environmental Aid. He examines cars and cruise ships for their pollutant emissions. He is considered by the media to be an “emissions hunter” or “the scourge of the auto industry.”
According to Manager Magazin, Mercedes was understandably nervous about supplying a CLA to the DUH for testing purposes. The company claims the CLA can hit 12.2 kWh/100 km (5.09 miles/kWh), making it the most efficient EV in Europe. Any results differing from that would cast doubt on the company’s reputation and risk losing that highly desired EV efficiency crown. But reportedly, the car performed exactly as it was supposed to. From Manager Magazin:
Friedrich drove kilometer after kilometer over three days, achieving a reading of 12.22 for the CLA. The car lived up to its promise. The on-road results matched—something truly rare—the manufacturer’s lab values.
Resch couldn’t or didn’t want to believe this. He reportedly asked Friedrich to subsequently test various versions of the Tesla electric benchmark. He also tested Model 3 models, but the CLA remained the most fuel-efficient. According to those close to him, Friedrich raved about the CLA, saying the Mercedes was the best electric car he’d ever driven.
At this point, you’d think Resch would make the results public, confirming Mercedes’ claims and reaffirming the CLA’s position as the most efficient electric car on the market right now. Except that’s not what happened, according to Manager Magazin:
But unlike usual, Resch remained silent afterward. The DUH did not publish the positive result for Mercedes. Mercedes also remained silent—although they would, of course, have liked to make the test results public.
Resch says he disliked the idea that Mercedes might use the measurement results to advertise under the label of Deutsche Umwelthilfe. He also doesn’t know whether the CLA provided by Mercedes was actually a production model or an improved version for the tests. Mercedes dismissed Resch’s concerns, saying the CLA provided was a production vehicle.
These are fair points from Resch. You wouldn’t want your independent non-profit to look like it’s promoting a company it’s actively in the process of suing. And there’s no way of telling whether the car tested was a pure production spec (I don’t think Mercedes is stupid enough to do this, but other manufacturers have in the past, so it can’t be dismissed entirely).
To me, it sounds like the DUH wanted to tack on a “gotcha” moment to an electric car maker in the hopes that the results would hold the manufacturer more accountable. Except, the results were reportedly better than expected, so the DUH decided to drop the whole thing and move on. Whether any of this is actually true is anyone’s guess; I’ve reached out to the DUH and Mercedes for comment. Until then, Mercedes’ official efficiency data still stands.
This guy sounds fun at parties
He is doing everyone a disservice by not highlighting when people do good instead of just fail.
Now I have Axel F. stuck in my head…
Positive reinforcement changes behavior much faster than negative
I had a 2001 Jetta TDI for 16 years, read almost everything about them and have never heard of Jürgen Resch.
I have a ’17 Accord which will probably outlive me, but this Mercedes does seem pretty cool and looks very fetching in blue from the 3/4 rear view.
But I still miss their traditional grill and 3-pointed star hood ornament. There will never be a cooler picture than this:
mercedes-test-track-high-bank-01-1024.jpg (1024×1030)
Prove me wrong.
Very impressive! I am of the opinion that well made EVs age much more slowly than ICE cars, batteries have the potential already to outlast their car platform by a long mile. Unless said platform gets bricked by shitty software – “im sorry, your car’s software support has ended and you can no longer maintain it, because it doesn’t suit the Euro8 emissions requirements.”
And before you laugh, it was actually one of the most controversial points of Euro7, that you would have to basically bring the car into emergency mode if the customer refused to fix an issue which lead to raised emissions, for instance a small fault in some actuator which would increase energy consumption somewhat. There was a long video about this on YouTube from Skoda’s chief of ICE development a while back.
But 12.2 kWh/100km, that’s amazing, most big cars are at 18+ today, small platforms at 15kWh.
Yeah, crazy advanced techno on these EVs upping efficiency, a 2 speed transmission!
That is impressive.
Resch: This car is pretty good.
Mercedes: Duh.
“so the DUH decided to drop the whole thing and move on.”
I think that’s a mistake on their part. They have gotten so used to giving criticism where criticism is warranted, they forgot the other side of that… to give credit where credit is warranted.
I hope that, if they confirm these results from a known production model, they would mention it. They should try to make their rating something that manufacturers fight for the ability to tout in marketing, like the IIHS in the US, for better or worse. If you want to make a difference, you have to appeal to money. Relying on anyone to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing is at the top of the checklist for failure.
True quality is meant to last a lifetime with proper care. That is why true wealth in my youth drove old Mercedes and Volvo wagons. The original Lexus LS sprung from exactly this thought process.
Sadly, that does not meet quarterly profit expectations.
Our modern disposable society is a menace.
It costs to be poor. I buy a pair of RedWing boots to last 30 years. Someone else buys 6 pairs of some off-brand over the same time and pays way more in whole.
Does RedWing still make boots as good as they used to? Too many once-quality manufacturers don’t. The problem is that the high end consumers don’t seem to care, either. The plot of Planned Obsolescence worked too well, though the increased speed of technological change has also done its share in assisting with the idea that old is no longer any good and too many people are too stupid to question it.
My little niece is growing up with money and, as such, she doesn’t seem to understand the idea of repairing anything—just get a new one. My sisters and I weren’t poor, but did not have an excess of money and my father used to tell us the cost of everything. I still know the Zenith VCR cost $600 in the early ’80s (a purchase he made to keep up with his younger, wealthier brother and, I’m sure, because of porn). That VCR, while expensive, worked into the late ’90s, when it could have been repaired, but at that point, DVDs were well into replacing VHS and nobody wanted to bother. The DVD players—much cheaper than that Zenith VHS even without accounting for inflation—lasted only several years each until streaming replaced them altogether. My father always mentioned prices with the purpose of bragging/guilting people depending on the situation, but along with an ethic of taking care of things and repairing them, he half-inadvertently instilled in me the value of things and money. I try to tell my nieces some of this, but their world is so removed that they can’t really understand and, in fairness, while they can take care of stuff better, there’s not much that can be readily repaired anymore.
Dunno, last pair of RedWings I bought was probably 25 years ago. Agree on the whole, dad bought our first VHS in 1986? or so. Bet we were still using it when I was in college in the mid 90’s. I still expect stuff to last more than the next consumer cycle. I abhore planned obsolescence.
Over consumption will be our downfall.
Yes, yes they do make great boots and shoes. Which results in a different issue: buy 2 pair because when they finally wear out because they will have discontinued your favorite pair. Feet don’t change, but fashions do; even Redwing succumbs to feeling like they gotta change stuff.
I did that with a pair of Clarks shoes. The first pairs’ soles are pretty worn after about 6 years of nearly daily wear, but the leather still looks decent and they’re very comfortable. They don’t sell them in the US in ox blood anymore, so it’s good I got two.
I have a JVC VCR that still works. Not for porn. To transfer/digitalize old home movies. Oh, and a Sony Hi-8 camcorder still does as well.
I worked in TV news for 19 years up until 1999 and my iPhone shoots better video than any of the ~$60K cameras I ever used (except for the telescopic reach of the lenses). Also, better stills than I ever could on 35 mm film in my newspaper days.
Kids don’t know how good they have it these days. I gave my son my grandfather’s Polaroid SX-70 and what it barfs out its front always looks like crap. But I guess there is a certain “patina” to stuff looking that rough.
I now have a Canon R that shoots stuff so clean you could make billboards from the files.
I always hated Polaroids. I just shake my head when I see kids digitally replicating it, but I guess it’s fun when it’s a choice rather than best you could do. At our first house, we found a pile of Polaroids from an old Laconia Bike Week left behind and . . . well, I’ll just write that they were funny to see and it’s not like they could have brought them somewhere to get developed without possibly getting them back overexposed to black.
I have a pair of Rockport shoes that still look pretty good after 10 years. But now, due to back issues that affect my gait, the soles are wearing out and now I’m shocked to see replacements cost twice as much as what I paid for them. Inflation, I guess, probably has something to do with that.
Glad to hear it. Mercedes-Benz needs a win in their electric line up. Also glad to see them improving the looks of their ev fleet.
Wow, 5 miles per kWh is very good: better than a Lucid, right?
Modern Mercedes are so plastic, and complex, and software dependent that I’d never consider buying another one myself (I had a ’98 CLK w/AMG Monoblock wheels that was a very pretty lemon) but I admire that efficiency score if it’s real.
Too bad they are hideously ugly. Mercedes EVs are uglier than Teslas and that is saying a lot. It’s like they decided a blob fish should be the inspiration.
I agree that the existing MB EQ line is hideous. Every time I see one I wonder what the hell they were thinking. This car, however, seems like a step in the right direction. I like it.
Have you seen a blob fish in its element?
LMAO. I have seen Ted Cruz in an airport before.
This car is relatively efficient as far as EVs go, but how repairable is it in old age? The emissions produced from all of the materials and embodied energy that go into manufacturing the car is something that must be considered because its environmental impact is every bit as massive as what the car is expected to use/produce over its lifetime. Many of the resources that go into making the car are non-renewable.
It is not good for the environment to fill the landfills up with toxic crap. If this car cannot be economically repaired with basic tools by a shadetree mechanic and confidently used as a daily when it is 2+ decades old, then you might as well keep using an old clackety diesel Mercedes from the 1970s/1980s, as that could be kept operational for a human lifetime or longer AND run on biofuels.
There was an Invader GT kit car converted to electric posted on this site as being for sale on craigslist. I’d be FAR more confident that I’d be able to keep it running 30+ years from now, than I would this Mercedes. That Invader GT uses plug-and-play EV components that are easily swapped and programmed without anything proprietary locking the user out of repairs. A set of Harbor Freight tools and a laptop computer is all you need. It’s as simple as an ICE car from the 1960s, if not moreso. That Mercedes sounds like at the end of its initial service life, it’s not getting fixed without spending $2X,XXX+ at the stealership, meaning it will be landfill fodder with non-recyclable components that have been bricked by software but would otherwise be functional if they could be cheaply fixed(except they were deliberately designed not to be by Mercedes), which is the ultimate squandering of EV technology given the promise it holds for a much longer lasting car.
Hard to say. How many cars last that long without being wrecked?
I don’t want to encourage the “better to use an old dirty car indefinitely” or “clean biofuel” things. The “environmental impact of making a new car” math has been done countless times, and I believe battery-electric is the way to go in general.
That reservation aside, absolutely screw these software-defined AI AI AI smartphone cars and all technology like them.
The greatest promise (and source of positive side-effects) of battery-electric is in the simplicity and interchangeability/standardization of modern electronics.
For so many reasons, we’re in desperate need of more open and hackable tech.
That isn’t coming from established automakers. You won’t ever see a new car sold without infotainment unless something is seriously wrong.
They’ve followed the path of data abuse, walled gardens, commodified attention, the two vowels I invoked earlier, and every other terrible thing “tech companies” are associated with. The Apple Car never happened because it would’ve been redundant.
I’ve also read many studies on the environmental impact of EVs vs ICE. I agree that EVs are the less damaging solution on the whole, but that is under the assumption you will actually get 15 years/200k miles or more out of it. Some of them become landfill fodder long before that: just outside of warrantee coverage, but can’t be fixed without paying the stealership or tech center far more than the car’s market value is worth or even the cost to buy another functioning example of the car altogether.
For the 2nd and 3rd hand buyer, EVs are showing themselves to be a generally less favorable option than ICE cars. It shouldn’t be this way. EV technology is overall simpler, less-maintenance, and has less to go wrong in its powertrain. The cars themselves being turned into black-boxed smartphones on wheels is the problem, and it applies to ICE cars as well. The 2nd and 3rd hand buyer, according to various studies, also don’t care for all of the damned bells and whistles; they just want a car that works with minimal expense and hassle.
Infotainment doesn’t need to be integrated into every aspect of the car in order for the car to have it. Most people are already carrying it with them anyway in their ironically-named “smart” device. Just provide an open-source solution that allows the user to plug their phone(or other devices) in, and they can have everything they want. Which is interesting anyway, because shouldn’t they be paying attention to the road, instead of being entertained, while operating a multi-ton missile?
The established automakers deserve to go bankrupt for this crap when it eventually comes back to bite them in the ass. There should be no bailouts.
I like what Slate is trying to do, this being said.
If he does a retest on a privately acquired production version and then releases the results, then fair enough. Also, he might want to preserve his right to not become an award/benchmark in a privacy kind of way, which is might seem foreign to us Americans but is probably something Germans would respect more.
I heard “The DUH” in the voice of the narrator of the Time Masheen ride from Idiocracy when he’d say “The UN”.
“But then an even greater force emerged: The UN. And The UN un-nazied the world”
That’s hilarious. For some reason, I heard “DUH” in the voice of Billie Eilish from “Bad Guy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyDfgMOUjCI
That’s how I pronounced it in my head just for the lulz. I’d be equally amused if DUH had sister organizations called DURR and D’OH.
D’OH would have to be their French subsidiary.
More of a white flag, er, label version,.
Not releasing the results is not OK. You don’t have to add “praise”. Just say it met spec and move on. That should be the goal, at any rate: confirm or deny claims
Thanks for stating clearly what I was thinking. Pretending the test never happened is disingenuous at best.
I was thinking similarly. But then I also considered – if this group’s mission is to be investigator/watchdogs who uncover problems, it doesn’t fit in to require them to report “no problem.” As somewhat of a parallel, the highway patrol doesn’t give out commendations to every vehicle that drives the speed limit.
Yeah, I agree with this take. They’re not making endorsements, they’re challenging false claims; all that stuff is different in important ways.
Also consider that they presumably went in expecting to find it lacking.
When they didn’t find a problem, they didn’t make a negative claim about a problem they hadn’t actually found.
At worst, we’ve found them guilty of what they found Mercedes guilty of: Not falsifying or misrepresenting the car’s efficiency to support a narrative.
12.2 kWh/100 km is very good. I wonder what kind of trajectory they did.
Now I hope a company will make a more ‘Toecutter’ version. It could stand to lose a lot of electronic gimmicks, weight and battery capacity.
They have 85 kWh net now. If they slash that to 40 kWh, the car would become a lot cheaper and lighter. Thus more fun to drive and environmentally friendly. And probably even more efficiënt.
Mercedes could start with merely eliminating all the superfluous glowing stars and the wide-screen dashboard…
…but then I suppose it would just look like a Corolla mated with a 1999 Ford ZX2.
Considering that it could end up outlasting both of those put together while being greatly cheaper to operate than either, I’d be all for that. It seems no major manufacturer has learned from the McKee Sundancer of half a century ago, where the battery pack is designed to be easily accessed and swapped at the end of life. The battery is the weak link in an EV, and should NOT be considered a permanent fixture, but instead a maintenance item. Any EV that doesn’t design the battery to be easily replaced, with open source components that could be easily/cheaply re-configured for an entirely different pack and constraints, has been designed for planned obsolescence.
What they didn’t tell you is that all CLAs are equipped with steering wheel fingerprint scanners, so they can tell when they’re being tested by Friedrich and put themselves in high efficiency mode. The rest of the time, they emit a chemical from their HVAC vents that’s fatal only to owls and baby seals
Once a cheater, always a cheater!
Jim Wangers era Pontiac FTW
“Let’s take off this mask…why….it’s old man Bosch!”
/would have gotten away with it, etc
I read about the new CLA’s architecture a few months ago, and I thought it was pretty cool that they managed to get that much efficiency out of it. Now, if they would just strip out the geegaws and technology for the sake of technology and give it the old-school “actual luxury through comfort and build quality” treatment, I’d be incredibly tempted to buy one, if they ever brought it here, which they probably won’t.
There is a reason the LS400 is the standard.
A modern, efficient EV Benz with the build quality, comfort, and ease of repair of the old W124s and W126s would be amazing. Imagine buying a car, confident that you will get 1+ million miles out of it with minimal hassle and downtime, with a battery swap or two along the way that you could pay Bubba mechanic down the street to do for you, confident it will be such a simple job he doesn’t screw it up, or you could even do yourself. Where everything on the car could be repaired as good as new.
Mercedes stopped building durable, repairable cars 30+ years ago. They’re disposable junk now, which is a crying shame, and making EVs into disposable junk entirely defeats the claimed purpose of making EVs to begin with.
Mercedes were once built a standard, not a cost point. This was the true lesson Toyota learned when making the early LS/SC series cars.
Growing up, a neighbor had a late ’60s Benz. It was tempermental at times, but it was like riding in a bank vault. Every material you touched was real metal or leather. Everything you touched felt quality. Contrast his Cadillacs. More glitz, glamour and power features. But everything just felt cheap and pasted on. Not meant to last a lifetime.
I wouldn’t have released it either. It would seem like an endorsement. I’m not going to praise someone for doing one thing right and a hundred things wrong. In regards to the efficiency of the car, it has the proper low to the ground, aerodynamic shape to achieve such performance, unlike what consumer trends have forced people into in the last two decades.
“It met all advertised claims in mulitple tests.”
I believe the organization in question is a mere watchdog, with a mission statement of finding cheating or mischief on the part of manufacturers. They’re not JD Power.