They say EVs are silent. AMG disagrees.
The new CLA 45 wants to steal hot-hatch buyers from gasoline and replace their fuel with electricity. It is a saloon or a Shooting Brake. Looks familiar? Look closer. It’s totally different inside.
Hardware that breaks the mold
This isn’t the regular CLA in sheep’s clothing. It swaps the combustion heart for a 94kWh battery—the same one coming in the C-Class Electric. Then it adds three motors. Not from Mercedes. From Yasa. A firm in Oxfordshire. Axial flux. Weird words for people who know cars, standard now.
Two motors live in the back. One hangs up front. Together they push 671bhp through all four wheels. Wait. You can get that full power just from the rear wheels alone.
The front motor is a shy friend. It only shows up when you need grip. Rain. Ice. A frantic start line launch.
Why limit it then? Heat. Batteries choke if you run them too hot. But here is the twist. Future updates might unlock even more power. Right now, the rear-biased setup gives you a drift mode. Tyre-smoke kind.
The 2.3-tonne brick moves fast. 0 to 62mph in 3.0 seconds. The wagon is slower. 3.2s.
Put it in perspective.
– SLS AMG Black Series? 3.6s.
– The F1-engined AMG One? 2.9s.
– This electric thing? Sitting right in between.
Top speed is 155mph. Unless you pay for the Dynamic Plus pack. Then it’s 168mph.
The ghost of the M139
Here’s the weird part. You want acceleration? Turn off the AMGForce system.
AMGForce slows the car down. Deliberately.
It mimics the sound and power curve of the old M139 four-cylinder. The world’s most powerful series-production engine. Ever. The new system runs fake shifts through a synthesized eight-speed box. Vibrating motors sit in your seatback. They buzz against your spine. You feel the rumble. You hear the pops. You hear the crackles when you lift off the gas.
It has a loud mode. Mercedes says it beats aftermarket exhausts for volume. Inside? Outside? Both.
But you won’t use it on a track day. Not if you want to win. Switch to Race mode. AMGForce dies. The simulation vanishes. Raw, silent electric torque takes over.
Smart batteries on the Nür
Mercedes built a brain for the battery. Predictive management.
The car knows where it is. It knows the map. It manages heat not by timing, but by geography.
Run full power through every corner at the Nordschleife? The battery overheats. The car limps. Bad.
Run smart? The car holds back in the twisties. It saves heat. Then—bang—it dumps all the stored thermal energy and maximum thrust into long straights. Like Döttinger Höhe.
It’s cold calculus for a driving experience meant to feel warm. Does that work? Will you forgive the silence if it helps the lap time?
Or is this just noise marketing dressed up as performance?
We will have to wait for the drivers to find out. The engineers think they cracked the code.
They might have. Or they might just be buying time.
