Mercedes-Benz GLC (2025 - ) review

Pull quote:The GLC Electric looks a little pricier than obvious rivals like the BMW iX3 or Volvo EX60

While most people budget on monthly finance or lease rates these can fluctuate, and bottom-line price remains a useful comparison of relative value. By that measure the GLC Electric looks a little pricier than obvious rivals like the BMW iX3 or Volvo EX60. But not by enough to be a deal breaker. And Mercedes has always been a premium brand, so few are likely to complain about that. In terms of general running costs it’s the same old story for electric cars, and potential for big savings if you have facility to charge at home on cheaper domestic energy. The net is closing in terms of tax and other incentives like Benefit In Kind but EVs are still cheaper for company drivers than regular petrol or hybrid alternatives.

The GLC Electric is a brand-new model running lots of fresh tech so we’re living in hope this delivers the reliability and dependability Mercedes has traded on over the years. Watch this space. In this day and age the standard three-year warranty is nothing special, though you can pay to extend it if you choose.

This should be a straight five out of five for the GLC Electric, given the array of safety features fitted as standard. These include a centre airbag and genuinely useful stuff like blind-spot alerts, even if these can’t help with the poor forward visibility. The computing power behind all the driver aids is impressive, it’s just a shame they’re so heavy-handed. On narrow B-roads the lane-keeping is aggressive to the point of dangerous in the way it can suddenly swerve you into the gutter if it thinks you’re going anywhere near the central lines while the supposedly intelligent automatic re-gen has a habit of panic braking for every parked car you pass. If you really don’t trust yourself to be able to steer or perform lane changes and want the car to help you can pay extra through Mercedes’ ‘Digital Extras’ to upgrade the systems further. But on this experience we’d be saving our money.

In terms of ride comfort and refinement the GLC Electric is basically a four-wheeled wellness retreat, the silence of the electric power complemented by a near-total absence of road or wind noise. It helped that the first one we tried had the additional Refinement Package, adding adjustable air suspension and rear-wheel steering. We’ll spare you the bother of trying the Sport setting and advise you to just leave it in Comfort instead. We also tried the standard suspension, which is less fancy from a technical perspective but saves a chunk of extra money and is still impressively refined. Mercedes seats are always among the best in the business as well, and those in the GLC Electric are up there with a perfect balance of support and squishiness. Those in the back do a lot better than they do in the regular GLC as well, the extra wheelbase of the Electric freeing up more legroom while the flat floor helps it feel even more spacious. A sense helped further by the standard panoramic roof. While perhaps a bit posh for sticky fingers, muddy dogs and tip runs the GLC has plenty of boot space for regular family SUV duties, a large storage compartment (or ‘frunk’ in the jargon) under what would be the bonnet swallowing charge cables, shopping bags and the rest of the tat that would usually be rattling about in the luggage area.

If you live for your screen time the interior of the GLC will feel like your happy place, even the base model featuring a triple set-up across the dash with one for your instruments, one for your infotainment in the middle and a third in front of the passenger, all powered by Mercedes’ slick MBUX operating system. You need to go up a trim level to unlock the full Super Screen experience and interactivity for the passenger but if you want the full experience you need to dig deeper still for the AMG Line Premium and its wall-to-wall Hyperscreen. This extends into one seamlessly integrated unit running the full width of the car, and is an undeniably impressive talking point. If, perhaps, simultaneously a bit much. Each to theirs but we prefer the more subtle strip-like approach taken by the BMW iX3. Overall, you get the inescapable sense the GLC has been designed more for Chinese tastes than European ones, which you could reasonably argue as smart thinking by Mercedes for the fact this is the way the automotive winds are blowing right now. But against the cool, restrained design of its Volvo and BMW equivalents the GLC Electric nudges dangerously close to the tacky in its overall aesthetic. Time – and buyers – will be the judge of whether Mercedes has called this right.

More versions are sure to follow but, for now, all GLC Electric models feature the same twin-motor electric powertrain with a chunky 94kWh battery and combined output nudging on 500 horsepower. Which sounds like more than it needs, but in fact feels totally natural thanks to the incredibly slick calibration of the throttle and other controls. Range varies a fraction depending on which of the trim levels you go for, the best-case by the official numbers being 405 miles. Infuriatingly, Mercedes persists with quoting efficiency in Wh/mile rather than the miles/kWh used by most rivals but a bit of number crunching after our drive suggested the real-world range isn’t too far off that, or at least isn’t in the warm ambient temperatures we were driving in. You may lose a bit of endurance come winter time, though the standard-fit heat pump will help keep you toasty without draining the drive battery.