FOLLOW THE LEADER

The Mercedes-Benz CLA and MG IM5 are two fresh electric models with designs on the class-leading Tesla Model 3's supremacy. We take a road trip to find out if there's a new boss in town

- WILL NIGHTINGALE

A DECADE AGO, your smartphone could browse the web, give you directions and probably even shoot 4K video.

Since then we've seen faster processors and cameras that can zoom in to individual eyelashes, but, in truth, today's phones don't do anything dramatically different from the ones we had back then. Electric vehicles (EVs), on the other hand, have evolved almost beyond recognition during the same timescale.

Back in 2015, even driving the 60-odd miles from our London base to our Bedfordshire test track in an EV required a military mindset. We'd set off with 100% charge in a BMW i3 or a Volkswagen e-Golf and spend the whole journey checking the battery level while coasting behind lorries on the M1 to save electrons and (hopefully) make the journey in one hit. Stopping to charge was a last resort, because the few public chargers that existed were often either broken or occupied for what seemed like hours on end.

We're not going to pretend that driving a modern EV requires zero compromise, but the three cars we've lined up for a 500-mile road trip would appear to get pretty darned close. Mercedes-Benz sent us its new CLA, with a massive 481-mile maximum range, Tesla loaned us its freshly updated 466-mile Model 3, and MG... well, it was supposed to send us its new 441-mile IM5 Long Range, but it accidentally sent the 357-mile Performance version instead. Still, with a colossal 742bhp, perhaps it could just sprint to catch up after making more charging stops?

THE CARS

Seriously, though, when we realised we'd been sent the wrong version, we were tempted to make this a two-way fight between Mercedes and Tesla. But then we thought: the IM5 Performance actually splits the other cars here on price, costing £3275 more than the Model 3 but £3505 less than the CLA.