Mercedes-Benz GLC Electric review

Well, it’s not subtle. Hard to talk about much else other than that 39.1-inch Hyperscreen that dominates absolutely everything. We’ve seen Mercedes with a pillar-to-pillar flat surface with various embedded screens before, the difference here is the display stretches seamlessly all the way from the instrument cluster to the passenger window.

You can select from 11 ‘styles’ as your background, and from endless colours for the ambient lighting. Nothing new there for Merc, but what’s clear is it wants to be known as the most modern, the most tech-laden, and the most forward-thinking brand out there, even if a vocal portion of car buyers (like us) are saying that less screen and more physical switchgear is the way forward.

Having said that, Mercedes is delighted to tell us that physical scroll wheels have returned on the steering wheel… right next to the familiar capacitive thumb pads. Sigh. A panoramic roof is standard, but go for the ‘Sky Control’ option and you can make it see-through or opaque, or stripy for some reason, at the touch of a button. Spend even more money and you can activate ambient lighting in the roof that illuminates 162 stars above your head. Eat your heart out Rolls-Royce.  

On the outside, the illuminated “brand-defining chromed grille” sets the tone that the GLC isn’t shy. On the inside, the overall effect – with the massive, sculpted air vents, bonkers-big screen and high-quality materials throughout – is confident, quite blingy and a bit like a high-end night club. If that’s your thing you’re going to love it.

What's the tech like?

How long have you got? Up to ten external cameras, five radar sensors and twelve ultrasonic sensors are fitted to enable every driver assistance system you can imagine and more that will be enabled over the air during the life cycle of the car.

At the heart of everything, says Mercedes, is its MB.OS ‘superbrain’. A central computing system that handles everything from the infotainment to automated driving functions. It’s designed to “learn driver preferences, adapt to changing conditions and make decisions in real time for a safer, more intuitive experience and contains powerful chips capable of 254 trillion operations per second.”

It’s all very impressive on paper, but the experience from the driver’s seat isn’t wildly different to what we’re familiar with. Yes, the screen is detailed, bright and crisp (thanks to “innovative matrix-backlight technology”), responds instantly and the animations are first class.

And yes the infotainment system is the first that “integrates AI from both Microsoft and Google” which promises to make chatting with your virtual assistant like chatting to a friend, but in practice it’s not a step change in this type of tech.

The bottom line is passengers will simply interact with their phones if they need information and the driver should probably be concentrating on driving. In truth we need to spend more than a day with it, to see if the true benefits reveal themselves.  

Is it practical?

Yes, deeply. A 84mm longer wheelbase than the old GLC means 13mm more legroom and 46mm more headroom in the front, and 47mm more legroom and 17mm more headroom in the back. The boot is 570 litres, expanding to 1,740 litres with the back seats down – that’s roughly equal to the BMW iX3, but the Merc’s 128-litre frunk is a lot bigger than the BMW’s 17-litre front cubby.

It can tow up to 2.4-tonnes and carry up to 100kg of bikes on a towbar rack. It also has a Terrain mode for some light off-roading… plus Merc went so far as to fit a Land Rover-style ‘transparent bonnet’ function that gives a virtual view under the front of the car, letting you place your front wheels precisely.

In the front there’s a deep storage cubby in the centre console, two cupholders, big door bins and more storage under the floating centre console with an elastic strap to keep valuables from taking flight. A pair of wireless phone trays are perfectly placed and work without having to place your device like a safe-cracker.

Rear passengers get a pair of USB-C sockets, big door bins and a pull-down armrest, while in the boot there’s an adjustable height floor, the rear seats flip down at the push of a button, and you can lower the rear suspension via a toggle in the boot to make loading that little bit easier.