‘It’s irritatingly good at it’: The Mercedes-Benz CLA has the best autonomous parking feature I’ve ever tried — plus one trick that's even more useful

We've already waxed lyrical about the excellent efficiency of Mercedes’ recent CLA, with its clever gearing system tuned to eke the most out of its onboard battery packs during long bouts of high speed driving — a scenario that usually obliterates range.

This factor alone clearly had me distracted at the original launch event as, between hyper-miling on Danish roads and messing around with the German marque’s new voice assistant, I didn't have time to test out its other great feature — autonomous parking functionality.

Before getting into the meat of this feature, I’d like to admit two things. Firstly, I completely understand autonomous parking functionality exists in other automotive products (Tesla owners, put down your pitchforks) and yes, it has been around for some time. The issue is, I rarely bother to use them.

By the time I’ve rummaged around the various on-screen menus or pressed the appropriate series of switches, I could have parked the car myself, so often have.

But the thing that impressed me the most about the Mercedes-Benz CLA’s autonomous parking functionality during a recent loan was the ease at which the functionality was presented and then activated.

There’s video evidence below, should you want some visuals. But take it from me — the CLA simply knows when you are about to park and actively starts hunting for a space.

Once located, it relays its findings via jumbo, idiot-proof graphics on the central touchscreen, so you can make your preferred parking choice. It handles typical parking bay scenarios, as well as trickier parallel or reverse-parking situations.

What’s more, it doesn’t hang around once you have decided upon a space. The CLA flicks the indicators on and slips into that space in a manner that won’t have traffic behind raging with impatience.

Street smarts

Thanks to living in a busy terraced street, I’m used to street-parking my vehicles. But hey, I am human and mess up a parallel parking maneuvers every now and then, having to take a second stab at it because I’ve come in too hot, overcooked the angle or ended up too far away from the curb.

During my time with the Mercedes CLA, it autonomously aced that particular move. Every. Single. Time.

Biblical rain? No problems. Spookily dark street? Easy peasy. It was borderline irritatingly good at it, the steering wheel swirling with enviable confidence.

While the EV is doing its thing, the driver is encouraged to keep an eye on proceedings and cover the brakes (just in case), but the extensive suite of cameras and sensors are fantastically accurate when it comes to detecting parked cars and avoiding scraping expensive alloy wheels on raised curbs.

There were a couple of times where I had to manually shifted the car over in particularly cramped parking bays, as the CLA hadn’t left me a lot of room to get out, but it wasn’t often.

Having been deterred by other systems that have proven painfully slow, indecisive or wildly inaccurate, I had largely written off autonomous parking. Not now.

An ace all-rounder

The suite of technology that graces the interior of many modern Mercedes’ isn’t perfect, as there’s still far too much reliance on haptic buttons and touchscreens for me.

A pair of sliders on the CLA’s steering wheel that adjust volume and cruise control speed are too easily brushed when navigating tight corners and roundabouts, for example.

There were multiple times when the radio suddenly became aggressively loud or I accidentally activated a 15mph speed limiter.

Similarly, it took me far too long to locate the icon that activated the rear window de-mister. This stuff needs to be mapped to fixed buttons.

However, these really are minor grumbles, because the infotainment is largely quick to respond and accurate, with the “Hey Mercedes!” voice assistant doing a good job of adjusting vehicle setting and taking care of navigational duties.

I was demoed its skills with Google Maps during a pre-launch event and I’m pleased to report that the voice assistant can still help with queries in a natural manner.

You can ask it to recommend places to eat in the area, or even navigate to the fastest and most convenient chargers.

But above all else, it is the USP that impressed me the most at launch that continues to set the CLA apart from the EV competition today: efficiency.

The low, sleek saloon is one of the best electric passenger cars currently on sale for an accurate and reliable range read-out, even when journeys involve lots of high speed motorways or highways.

During a week of testing, I used the car everyday for local trips and chores, as well as a 200-mile round trip to the airport. This was in mixed weather with lots of rain and plenty of very cold mornings.

The car was delivered with around 90% charge and it still displayed a healthy 20% – or around 80-miles of remaining range – when I returned it seven days later.

In most other battery-powered vehicles I have tested recently, I would have been forced to plug in at least once during that typical week. The fact is made worse when said forced charging session is in the middle of the night on the way home from an airport.

So I stand by my original missive that efficiency can be exciting — and it’s even more attractive when your EV takes the pain out of parallel parking.

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