Car of the Week – 19 August – Mercedes GLE 500e Hybrid

In 1998 the Mercede ML virtually invented the luxury SUV class, taking on the Range Rover as the go-to vehicle for families looking for a large luxury vehicle to impress the neighbours.

Eighteen years on it continues to be hugely successful albeit renamed the GLE as part of Merc’s rebranding programme and is leading the way again, this time as the marque’s first plug-in hybrid SUV.

It’s not the first of its kind in the market with the Porsche, BMW and Audi all forging ahead with the same sort of green technology but it is mightily impressive, combining maximum energy efficiency with pretty awesome power.

For starters it has been redesigned with a new, more aggressive, front and a restyled back so it looks the business with a dominant, yet super-stylish persona.

Like all Mercs the interior is high quality and lots of quality leather, metal and piano black trims and the comfort of a five-star hotel suite. There is also a new tablet-style screen on the dashboard – I really wish they would introduce retractable screens, like Audi, but its not unatttractive and unlike some Mercs is nicely integrated into the facia.

You get the usual dynamic select drive modes on the centre dash offering Comfort, Sport, and a setting for slippery conditions but in addition to that there is a switch on the central dash for the hybrid modes.

Hybrid alone means the car will constantly search for the best combination of combustion engine and electric motor to ensure maximum efficiency, E-Mode is electic motor only, E-Save means the energy being created by the combustion engine, overrun and braking is stored for when it is needed and Charge where the battery is being restored to full power while driving. The energy is stored in a lithium-ion battery which sits above the rear wheels.

In the boot you will find the cable and sockets to enable you to plug the car into roadside charging stations (not sure there are too many of those in the UAE just yet) a wall mounted charger you can buy from Mercedes or from a domestic power supply. Mercedes say it takes around two hours to fully charge the car.

The power is provided by a 3-litre V6 petrol engine with 333bhp and an electric motor which has 116bhp and the beauty of this combination is that it produces the power of a V8 with a total output of 422bhp and a massive helping of torque at 650nm, while having the efficiency of a 3-litre car with Mercedes claiming it is one of the most efficient models in its segment. Although this vehicle weighs around two and a half tons it still has a 0-100kmh time of 5.3 seconds and a top speed of 245kmh which is pretty impressive.

When you push the ignition button you go straight into electric only mode which means there is total silence which is a little weird. One of the guys who came to collect the car and return it to Mercedes actually thought the car had broken down because he couldn’t hear an engine – poor bloke was completely confused by it all.

So as you pull away on electric power alone all you can hear is the sound of tyres on tarmac but the acceleration is really quite impressive thanks to a power booster. Mercedes say you can drive for 30km on electric power alone.

Personally I think that is a little ambitious as I drove around the complex where I live which is nowhere near 30km and it appears to be consuming the battery power much quicker than that. However, you can travel far enough for it to be useful for cruising around town with zero emissions which has to be a positive.

The technology in this vehicle really is fascinating in the way it provides heaps of performance and is constantly ensuring maximum efficiency and using kinetic energy from braking and lifting off the accelerator to help the logevity of the battery.

I am not looking forward to electric only cars because I enjoy driving cars with combustion engines but this Mercedes is the perfect compromise. Whether the UAE is fully ready for hybrids is, of course, another matter and whether this vehicle is made available here will depend largely on interest and demand so there is no price available at this moment.

Having driven this vehicle for a couple of days I would say it deserves to be successful here simply because it offers the best of everything you need with top notch peformance, ultimate luxury, great aesthetics and green technology that will dictate the future of motoring.