A250e 1.3 Phev AMG Line Premium Plus Auto 5dr

A Triumph of Style over Practicality

This was first registered in July 2020 – I’ve updated this review in 2023, nearly 12000 miles on.
Full disclosure first: I am no longer in the first flush of youth, so I suspect that I’m not M-B’s target demographic for this trendy small hatch. However, I do like to get about – er – briskly, and I do like to be comfortable.
On paper, this ticks all the boxes. The A250e is a plug in hybrid that routinely gives me about 40 miles of trundling around Somerset’s lanes, (about 80% of my driving) but without the range anxiety that having a pure electric car would generate on longer trips.
At first appearance, it’s a very neat-looking package. Seats are comfortable and the Premium Plus package gets you adjustable lumbar support and memory seats (the manual adjustment is a pain…). That package also gets you – whether you want them or not - a sunroof with an electric blind which rattles and goes wronng a lot, clever but pointless matrix LED headlights and – wait for it – a 64 colour ambient interior lighting package that is probably the naffest waste of money and effort I’ve ever seen. I suppose it was an attempt to justify the eye-watering extra cost. Beware that more recent models with the P+ package also get 19in wheels with rubber band tyres which c****** the (already quite choppy) ride. What you don’t get – and can’t have – is proper leather seats. Across the whol;e A & B Class range all you can get is nasty sweaty German taxi-spec plastic seats (Artico artificial “leather”) or – in the Premium Plus trim - the same with micro fibre facings . (In an unguarded moment , an M-B sales guy told me that so many of the smaller cars are bought by Gen Zs and millennials who seem to be going vegetarian that M-B has stopped offering leather. ) I want to sit on the seats, not eat the damn things!
The interior majors on hard shiny plastic – including all the storage, so everything rattles about. (What happened to nice soft-touch plastics?) The air vents in the centre of the sdash are chrome monstrosities that look as if they’ve escaped from the tail fins of a ‘fifties American sjushmobile or a similar period jukebox. Weird! Like all current Mercedes, most of the much-hyped connectivity only works for the first 3 years – thereafter, you have to buy an (expensive) licence if you want to keep using it. I think that’s a rip-off – they’ll be charging extra to use the windscreen wipers next… The cabin is (sort of) saved by the very pretty infotainment system: two big configurable screens. It all works well once you’ve climbed the steep learning curve – and so long as you don’t want to change anything on the move, as you have to dive into touchscreen menus. . There’s no option to have classic Mercedes clear black and white primary instruments, although lots of different light shows are available if you like that sort of thing… Voice control is generally the best I’ve come across – just as well as trying to use the touchscreen on the move is a recipe for running into a wall, and the touchpad and wrist rest combo in the centre console is probably OK for Continebtal drivers (or left-handed UK drivers), but it’s not very clever for the majority of right hande drivers in a RHD car. That pad also means that the “gearlever” moves to a column stalk, which is very 1950’s and takes some getting used to. (I note that this year’s models models no longer have the touchpad, but the gear lever is still on the steering column. )
The headrests (front and back) are integral, so don’t fold down out of the way. They are surprisingly intrusive and make the cockpit a bit cave-like from the back seats. Space for oddment stowage is frankly pathetic, especially as the hybrid battery stuff means there is no space at all under the boot floor – not even for the charging cables. The glove box is too small for the (encyclopaedia-sized) handbook, there are nets begind the front seats and in the passenger footwell and the afore-mentioned hard rattly plastic for the centre console bin & door pockets. The hatchback lid is HEAVY – unpowered and unassisted, with no apparent option available for either.
Dynamically, it’s really not bad, considering the extra weight it’s lugging about,. Adding the 100bhp electric motor to the rather rough 1.3 litre petrol lump makes it quite quick, but it tends to come in a bit suddenly when not expected, so with that and the rather grabby brakes (apparently caused by a strange algoritm for battery recuperation on braking – adjustable in some driving modes) it takes time to get used to the jerkiness of it all and drive smoothly.
In summary, what could be an absolutely superb small luxury hatch is let down by some very strange design choices, gimmickry and over-complication. Dynamically it’s a long way from best in class.
Bit of a shame, really – 2 stars out of 5.

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