A250e & MBUX early experiences

[Ian Plummer]

Hello all,

I'm a new member and took delivery of my A250e two months ago. As a start, I thought I might give my first impressions. I'm sure they will change over time but with very limited mileage on the clock I still thought it worth starting a discussion.

First, I drove both the std and hybrid versions before settling on the hybrid. The biggest difference was when both were in ICU mode the std AMG was so much more throaty than the e. Which surprised me I thought in petrol only mode both would sound the same.

Secondly, the e is quiet, but not as quiet as some other ev's but still pretty impressive.

Next, the ev range, well what can I say I'm 68 and no boy racer but I get a max of 25m. So not even close to the quoted range of 44m. That's not going to change over time and will I suspect remain the single biggest disappointment of this car

General driving, A great car to drive with plenty of room for my needs, quick but in all honesty, I couldn't call it a fun car to drive. The std version maybe, but not the e. But then that's not why I bought it.

MBUX, The display reconfigurability is excellent, I am having more than a few gremlins here though. More likely to be my lack of knowledge that the system itself. For example, I set my home address in NAV, engage hey Mercedes and say navigate to home. I then get asked what category of home I want?. Surely it should know I mean the stored home address and not bring up my phone as an option or other destinations. Pretty sure it didn't do this when I first got it. So maybe I changed something which messed it up.

Overall, so far very pleased, but would like to get a few more miles on the clock for a better assessment. What I do regret is not going for the driver assistance package. My fault, I thought adaptive cruise was std on the premium plus. Or that you could upgrade post-purchase, even though it's basically SW Mercedes won't let you do this. Shame they're missing out on some extra revenue.

I would be interested in the experience of others with MBUX and Merc hybrid's

Thanks for your time

Ian

 

[Madtutle3]

I thought adaptive cruise was std on the premium plus. Or that you could upgrade post-purchase, even though it's basically SW Mercedes won't let you do this.

I believe it requires extra sensors up front.

 

[Stephen Nightingale]

Hey Ian,

Same here: I bought my A250e at the end of September and so far have done 1350 miles total, with 850 miles electric - so I'm on about 60% electric running, most of that tooling around within 20 miles of York. I got an EO Mini Pro 7KwH charger installed at home, and that works well (after the first dud one was replaced). Takes about 1hr 40mins for a 12KwH charge, which is a whole lot more comfortable than waiting half a day for a full BEVcharge.

For electic and petrol ranges, I took the view from the beginning that the 'predicted' ranges were going to be bogus, so I'm calculating elapsed miles running each way. The electric range is quite sensitive to temperature, so I've seen as little as 25mpg when it's cold outside, but I have also seen around 36 on a warmer day. It is also sensitive to driving style, so stop-start in town driving gets you lower range, and electric cruising at 50-60mph gets longer. I think we will be seeing the claimed 44 in the Summer months, and I'm happy enough with that.

I run either 'Comfort' mode in town, or 'BL' mode on a longer trip. BL is actually a pure hybrid mode, so it is generating extra miles for you when running petrol: in this way I got 47 miles electric mode on one trip, which is also an unexpected benefit. In trying to work out "petrol only" mileage, I think I'm getting around 36mpg. This is medium length trips over lumpy A roads. I'm keen to try longer cruising trips on Motorways, to see what I can get there. Hopefully should do well in excess of 40mpg on those tips, but we'll see.

As mentioned above, I think the predicted range figures are totally bogus: the electric range generally under-reads, but the petrol figure wildly over-reads. On a full tank - notionally 30 litres, it claims I have a 384 mile range, which if true would be 14 miles per litre/63mpg. Actual experience so far is about 8 miles per litre, or 36mpg, and that would translate to a predictable range of 240 miles. I don't mind that that's what the range *is*, but I am a bit put out that it is so wildly at variance with the predicted figure that stares out at me. I think they should chuck the predictions or else let the user reset them.

As to charging away from home, some of the PodPoints are free, so I go and charge at them whenever I can. But Public Pod Points are few and far between, so far. I see on the Zap Map a lot of Osprey, and other chargers that put out 22Kwh and 50KwH, which would be great, but I think we are limited to 7KwH charging. That might be a concern if we're looking for Type 2 public chargers we can use, but if the UK edition of the A250e won't accept 22KwH, we're going to have a problem unless the public provision of 7KwH chargers increases.

I have a question out to MB awaiting an answer: If I connect to a Type 2 22KwH charger, will the A250e 'negotiate it down' to 7KwH, or will it reject the charge. Very interested to know yours and others experiences in this.

Cheers,

Stephen Nightingale.

Hello all,

 

[jimbg]

Pretty sure you will only draw the power level that you need.

If you think about it you plug all sorts of devices into a 13 amp ( 3kW ) socket at home and few draw that maximum power.

 

[Ron240]

MBUX, The display reconfigurability is excellent, I am having more than a few gremlins here though.

What I do regret is not going for the driver assistance package. My fault, I thought adaptive cruise was std on the premium plus.

I have a CLA 250 Premium Plus and yes the MBUX is very good, but I have noticed some minor annoyances when using the phone book.
I found out early on there was no need to say "Hey Mercedes", so all I say is "Mercedes" and the system reponds right away.
In fact the other day I was talking to my passenger and the system suddenly said "How may I help you" I reasised that I had said a word which simply sounded like Mercedes. First time that has happened.

Regarding the Adaptive Cruise, or Distronic that Mercedes call it....yes it really should be included with the top trim spec and not part of a £1500 pack along with other features that I don't want.