The GLC may not look outrageously different to the ICE GLC, but it is a substantially bigger car, at more than 100mm longer overall and with a useful 84mm of extra metal between the axles for a tangible boost in leg room in both rows. Head room is slightly better, too, and while the boot is slightly smaller, at 520 litres, it's supplemented by a relatively whopping 128-litre frunk that will take the charging cables and all your family's muddy boots.
It feels pretty massive inside: bright, airy (partly courtesy of the standard panoramic sunroof) and far better packaged than the old EQC that it indirectly replaces - testament to the benefits of using an EV-native platform rather than an adapted ICE car platform.
It’s also a seriously luxurious environment in here: material quality is extremely impressive, the seats are excellent, the voice control works like a dream (“Hey Mercedes, open my window and turn off the speed limit warning bong” etc) and, while there’s not exactly a surfeit of physical controls, those that do feature have a solid feel to them, clicking and clacking with that reassuring vibe of quality craftsmanship.
But there’s only so long you can talk about the interior before you have to address the inelegance in the room. Even the iX3’s whopping 18in central display, strikingly parallelogramic as it is, feels subtle and unobtrusive by comparison to the GLC’s full-width digital interface. This is simply too much screen. What little you gain in real-world functionality, you more than lose in visual appeal: it’s no more than a massive slab of fingerprint-smeared black plastic when turned off. And if you don’t spec the passenger touchscreen, you essentially just get a digital photoframe, with the option to display one of your phone pics in the car. Less digitally dependent alternatives in this space do a better job of cultivating a sense of occasion through interesting dashboard design flourishes and luxurious materials.
It can’t half do a lot, though. Powered by a new internal operating system said to be capable of 254 trillion operations per second, this latest iteration of Mercedes’ MBUX is one of the quickest and most impressive infotainment systems I’ve yet used in a car.
Context:
The electric GLC offers 100mm more length and impressive luxury but suffers from an oversized screen interface.
Context:
This shows how EV-native platforms can dramatically improve space efficiency over converted ICE designs.
Context:
Mercedes' new MBUX system processes 254 trillion operations per second using AI from Microsoft and Google.