Mercedes Is Joining The Electric Bandwagon

Tesla is great luxury carmaker, but its doesn’t exactly offer you a lot of options. It has one model for now — a sedan. And god help you if you want to drive a long distance in Canada, where Tesla’s free Supercharger network is laughably small compared to the U.S.

Mercedes-Benz on the other hand, offers options. At last count there are 22 different models, everything from coupes to sedans to SUVs to wagons to armoured stretched limos. Mercedes recently announced that by 2017, 10 of them will be available with plug-in electric hybrid power. These models offer silent Tesla-style electric power (albeit for a more limited range), and a gas engine for covering long distances in the large swaths of our country without convenient car charging ports.

We drove the first Mercedes plug-in, the GLE 500e SUV. And, well, it’s great — maybe the ultimate family hauler. It’ll go 30 kilometres using only electric power, which makes the driving experience ultra-smooth and eerily quiet. (A full charge takes as little as two hours.) Once that runs out, you’ve got a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 to go the distance. Is it quick? Yes: 0-100 km/h comes up in 5.3 seconds. Far more impressive though is the fuel economy, rated (using the European test) at 3.7 L/100 km.

If this is anything to go by, the rest of Benz’s plug-in lineup can’t arrive soon enough.