Chip it on the Green

New PHEV brings out the best in the sensible, sophisticated SUV

- Jeremy Taylor

THE MASTERS AT THE AUGUSTA National Golf Club in Georgia is an event with many quirks. For instance, I was barked at by an irate course official for wearing a discreet Bentley baseball cap, in unwitting breach of the club's ban on logos. Mobile phones are banned, too, although the organisers will play birdsong through speakers in the trees to improve the ambience.

An odd choice, perhaps, as the launch venue for the latest Mercedes GLE SUV-a car put on earth to define "unquirky" and which has just enjoyed a major cabin-tech upgrade that makes it more than ever resemble a comfy smartphone on wheels.

The headline act, sure to keep those GLE sales figures booming, is the 400 e plug-in hybrid, pairing a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with a 100-kW (136-hp) electric motor.