Plug-in hybrids are constructing their case as stopgap options for drivers not able to take the EV plunge. These of you who can management or restrict your each day driving wants are squarely in its sights. Do you retain your each day duties at 50 miles or much less? The Benz GLC 350e has you lined.
A house-charging setup for off-peak parsimony turns plug-ins into e-commuter vehicles. However charging prices matter on this equation, too. And should you’re counting nickels and dimes, and end up paying the usurious charges charged by some common stations in common locations, some great benefits of a plug-in flicker and dwindle.
That’s what I skilled earlier this month throughout my take a look at drive of the Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e, which acquitted itself totally effectively as I toured my previous stomping grounds. Till I wanted to plug it in, that’s. With close by high-power Electrify America DC fast-charging priced at 64 cents a kilowatt-hour, I noticed charging places alone aren’t the one hurdle to adoption. Value’s an actual killer.
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e plug-in hybrid take a look at drive evaluate
GLC 350e: A handy fast-charge mode, at a value
I picked up the GLC simply as a flurry or two fell out of a grey sky—by no means a great sign up Atlanta, the town too busy to plow. The car indicated 47 miles on its battery from the cease, however as soon as I tapped it to life and snicked its stubby shifter into gear, that vary fell instantly to 37 miles. I set out at a crisp 29 levels to seek out the Electrify America station I knew effectively, with the primary spittle of snowflakes on the horizon, realizing I would wish to stay near it to ensure some all-electric driving earlier than this winter-paralysis demon confirmed up.
The powertrain’s an extravagant dose of expertise, although it’s largely indecipherable from the surface, the place it will get solely small badges to distinguish it from gas-only fashions. The two.0-liter turbo-4 engine mates up with an electrical motor and a 24.8-kwh battery pack (23.3 kwh usable) for a mixed output of 313 hp and 406 lb-ft of torque, and an EPA-rated electrical vary of 54 miles. Mercedes guarantees a 0-60 mph time of 6.2 seconds, a bit slower than the gas-powered midrange GLC, and a prime pace of 135 mph as a hybrid, or 87 mph in its electrical drive mode.
After I get to the EA station, Bolts and ID.4s and Niros have lined as much as reap the benefits of its proximity to Kroger, Starbucks, and LA Health. I’m responsible as (not but) charged, too. When my slot opens and I pull in, a Taycan takes the plug subsequent to me. Surrounded as we’re by glassy golf-course mansions, I’m not stunned—however I’m to seek out that the EA quotes me a cost time of 1 hour, 14 minutes. I may cost at its default battery-friendly charge, however with snow on the best way I flick by means of the interface to interact quick charging, which chops the remaining time, boosts the cost charge to 60 kw, and commits to completion in about 55 minutes.
Just a few espresso photographs later, the GLC has peaked at 33 kw, and has accepted 27.2 kw of vitality, for a promised 62 miles of vary. It additionally charged me 64 cents for every kilowatt: together with tax, the $18.88 whole for the equal of a day’s commute leaves me at a loss. Including insult to damage, as quickly as I pulled out of the charging station the vary dropped to 59 miles, virtually prefer it was recalculating depreciation as a substitute of vary.
The exorbitant value of EA charging apart, the GLC 350e performs remarkably like the opposite GLC vehicles, with about 700 kilos extra packed into it, that’s.
Driveability isn’t a lot of a priority. There’s some lurch when the gasoline engine kicks in—when the battery’s exhausted, or when the Hybrid mode blends its energy with battery vitality to optimize higher-speed efficiency. The Mercedes regenerative braking system lets the brake pedal go stiff or mushy, relying on whether or not it’s set for the strongest quantity of regen in D-, or the least in D+.
I experimented with the varied drive and regen modes by means of a well-recognized sequence of four-leaf clovers that loop round my typical stopovers round city. Leaving the automotive in Auto mode, with regen set to its most, yields probably the most helpful driving vary in combined site visitors. The GLC’s large wheels and tires produce little bump-steer, however Mercedes SUVs have extra head toss than these from another luxurious manufacturers, largely from dialed-in lateral stiffness and large wheels and tires—and on this case, a self-leveling rear air suspension that offsets the battery weight. Whereas I keep vigilant in opposition to incoming winter, the GLC 350e tackles the tight on-ramps and the few snaky roads I can entry.
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e plug-in hybrid take a look at drive evaluate
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e plug-in hybrid take a look at drive evaluate
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e plug-in hybrid take a look at drive evaluate
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e plug-in hybrid take a look at drive evaluate
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class appears, area, and stuff
Mercedes repotted the GLC within the 2023 mannequin yr, resculpting its good-looking form that leans extra wagon than SUV. Additionally bought as a extra rakish Coupe mannequin, the GLC has a beautiful inside, with a digital tombstone at its heart that asserts the interface’s prominence in opposition to a river of matte wooden or metallic trim. Studded by squircular air vents and glammed up with metallic trim in each route, it lights up the bottom as you enter, glints to life when its begin button will get pressed, and responds to virtually each beck and name once you ship out the voice command, “Hey Mercedes.” If there’s a component of contemporary tech lacking from its wrapper, I wasn’t capable of establish it over a four-day street journey.
The GLC’s 113.1-inch wheelbase units out a footprint that allows plenty of inside room, with comfortable entrance 16-way energy seats which were designed round an individual barely smaller than me. After a number of hours of darting out to an exurban retreat and again, the driving force seat made itself identified at my hips with a uninteresting ache. On one break, I sat within the three-person bench, which may home two of me and my size-12 ft and short-leg, long-torso physique with ease. The whole lot I’d introduced on my street journey—coolers, in a single day bag, backpack—match simply into the 21.9 cubic-foot cargo space, too. Folded down, the rear seatbacks increase that whole to 52.6 cubic ft.
2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC 350e plug-in hybrid take a look at drive evaluate
How a lot does the 2025 Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class value?
With a value that falls between the Kia EV9 and a base Rivian R1S, the $61,050 GLC 350e plug-in hybrid got here witha charging cable I wasn’t pressed to make use of, in addition to its 11.9-inch touchscreen, wi-fi Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and touch-sensitive steering wheel controls that I grew extra accustomed to over time.
Mercedes sells one other plug-in GLC—the 671-hp AMG GLC 63 S E Efficiency, which lays on the facility to earn its initialism. Each be part of a lineup of PHEVs that additionally consists of the plug-in hybrid version of the bigger GLE-Class that arrived for the 2024 mannequin yr.
Sooner or later, it’s possible we’ll see the EQC electrical SUV within the U.S. in 2025, after Mercedes pulled again from plans to carry it right here in 2019. These stopgap fashions will assist the automaker because it pivots and delays its EV gross sales targets, because the politics surrounding electrified autos shift with each passing minute.
Most of us would fairly personal the all-electric fashions which will come to go, however over this weekend of driving I used to be capable of calculate precisely how the GLC plug-in would possibly work. It’s the identical line we harp on with each PHEV evaluate: It’s essential to plug it in for it to make sense.
This time it comes with the caveat: It’s essential to plug it in at house for it to make sense.
What you plug into higher have one thing extra just like the $0.17/kwh value most Atlantans pay for electrical energy. That calculates out to one thing extra like $4.50 for a full, putative 62-mile cost.
That situation is fully potential—if unlikely—with a house charger that’s used religiously. Out right here within the bougie burbs, plug-in drivers who don’t have their very own storage setup will stay on the mercy of our strip-mall overlords—and, at occasions, by overpriced, undermaintained charging conditions created by authorized settlements. At these costs, the espresso must be free.
