Small group of players. That is how few electric cars use multigear transmissions today.
Mercedes added its 2026 CLA EV to this exclusive club. Porsche Taycan did it earlier. Most others? They stick with a single, fixed reduction ratio. It’s simpler. Easier. But less efficient when the speedometer climbs.
An electric motor doesn’t suffer the same efficiency swings as a gas engine. But high speed still costs energy.
We needed numbers. Real ones. So we put the rear-drive CLA250+ through its paces. The comparison was against the standard rear-wheel drive Tesla Model 3. Same track. A five-mile oval. Speeds from 50 up to 100 mph. We ran them back to back.
The Tesla wins at the bottom. At 50 and 60 mph, it drinks significantly less electricity than the Mercedes. Why? partly tires. The test Mercedes wore optional 19-inch summer rubber. Not the best choice for economy. The Tesla rode on 18-inch aero covers. Advantage: Tesla.
Then the speed changed.
Cross that ~65 mph mark. The CLA shifts. It drops the motor RPM by more than half. Top gear engages. Suddenly, the dynamic flips.
Look at 90 mph. The Mercedes motor sits around 6000 RPM. Calm. Controlled. The Tesla? Its motor is screaming at 10,001. Furiously spinning. The CLA motor operates closer to 93% efficiency in this state. It catches the gap. It overtakes it.
At the highest speeds, the Mercedes was actually better.
Does the driver feel it? Barely.
In normal driving, the shift is subtle. Almost ghostly. Unless you mash the pedal in Sport mode. Then it pulls hard before the handoff. Aggressive. Intentional. But usually? You just get to where you’re going.
The range test tells the real story though. We hold steady at 75 mph on the highway. The CLA250+ went 340 miles. That beats its 317-mile EPA estimate. It puts the car in the top ten for range we’ve measured. And here is the kicker: it does this with an 85 kWh pack. Small. Modest compared to rivals with larger batteries.
If we had spec’d it with 17-inch efficient wheels? Probably 400 miles. But even with the clumsy 19s, it performs.
It is rare to see an EV gain ground against Tesla’s aerodynamics. And yet here it is. Leveraging an old-school solution—more gears—for a new-school problem.
Efficiency isn’t just about the motor. It’s about what you connect it to.
Will everyone adopt this? Probably not. Simplicity has a charm. Reliability has a market. But if you care about highway miles, and you don’t want a massive battery dragging your car down?
It works.
