Mercedes-Benz GLE facelift

The biggest-selling SUV in the Mercedes-Benz range is headed for a massive mid-life facelift, with fuel consumption, refinement, cleaner looks and an all-new name on the top of the shopping list.

Benz will crown the GLE-Class range, which used to be the ML-Class, with a GLE 500e plug-in hybrid and the whisper is the Australian operation has big plans for the fuel dodger to head the line-up here.

While Porsche already has its Cayenne (and Panamera) plug-in hybrid on sale in Australia, Germany's big three premium brands don't yet sell SUVs with battery-driven power, so Benz is pinning its hopes on beating the BMW X5 40e and the Audi Q7 TDI e-tron to the local punch.

Running the same powertrain as the S 500e limousine, Mercedes-Benz promises the GLE 500e 4Matic will deliver better economy than the GLE 250 d with V8 performance in a straight line.

The arrival of the plug-in hybrid helps the GLE slash an average of 17 per cent from the M-Class fleet's fuel consumption, even with the inclusion of the new, range-topping hard-hitters from AMG, the GLE 63 and the GLE 63 S.

The GLE will launch in Europe with five powertrains ranging from four to eight cylinders, all of them turbocharged.

Visual changes can be seen on the luxury SUV's nose and tail, to clean up the slightly disjointed M-Class visuals. The interior has received an upgrade too, though Mercedes is coy on the details for now.

The range will begin with a 150kW, four-cylinder diesel motor that Benz insists will deliver ground-breaking fuel economy for a car its size. The GLE 250 d delivers an NEDC combined cycle figure of 5.4 litres/100km and emits only 140 grams of CO2/km.

While that will be the entry level variant, the star of the show will be the abovementioned GLE 500 e 4MATIC. Capable of driving for 30km on pure electric power, it delivers a total system output of 325kW of power, yet still manages to burn through just 3.3L/100km (or 78g/km of CO2).

Admittedly, that's not quite as impressive as the S 500 e that the GLE's powertrain is plucked from. The big limo pulls 2.8L/100km and can eke out three more kilometers of km of electric range than the SUV before it needs to fire up the fossil frying unit.

It combines a 245kW, direct injection, turbocharged, 3.0-litre petrol V6 (codenamed M276) with an 85kW electric motor, which sits inside the upgraded seven-speed automatic transmission.

Together, they peak at 650Nm of torque, yet the GLE 500 e can be driven as an electric car at speeds of up to 130km/h.

Drawn from the generic pool of engines at Benz, then fiddled for greater efficiency, the M276 still manages to deliver 480Nm of torque from just 1600rpm (to 4000rpm). That alone should indicate that it's a complicated device, which the details confirm.

Its heads and block are aluminium and it uses the ultra-thin, spray-on Nanoslide technology the road division gave the F1 team last year. It has a pair of variable-geometry turbochargers and the direct-injection system can deliver fuel at 200 bar, giving the cylinders several spray-guided injections per bang.

Then there's the permanently excited synchronous electric motor, which uses nine rotor-plate packs to utilise juice out of the battery pack and it delivers an instant 340Nm of torque on demand. The electric motor's output is controlled by a computer and there's also a water-cooled DC/AC converter in the engine bay, plus a DC/DC converter (up to 3kW) for the cabin's 12 Volt system.

Like the recently tested C 350 e, the GLE 500 e will deliver hybrid, e-mode, e-save and charge modes for the plug-in hybrid, and all of the comings and goings of the petrol and electric power are controlled by a development of the big brain out of the SLS Electric sports car.

You'll want to steer clear of the charge mode, which locks out the electric motor and asks the petrol engine to deliver another 12kW of power to push 30 Amps into the battery. Yes, it adds mightily to the fuel consumption.

The 8.8kWh lithium-ion battery is charged in two hours via a wallbox or about four hours from a standard socket.

Like the recently driven C 350e, the GLE 500 e will have the ability to link its energy consumption with its satellite navigation system, with the big brain analysing the route and its traffic to plan where to use which type of power.

Mercedes-Benz isn't quoting performance numbers for the GLE 500 e, but the S-Class version hits 100km/h in 5.2 seconds. Neither is it quoting a weight figure, but this same system adds a total of 271kg to the weight of the C 350 e and more than 200kg for the S-Class, which weighs 2215kg.

The full-size SUV GLE 500 e will realistically outweigh the limo by at least 150kg.

But while the arrival of the plug-in hybrid Benz SUV has plenty of people excited, so does the arrival of a new generation of AMG hot ships.

At the other extreme from the GLE 500 e, AMG will offer the Mercedes-AMG (note yet another piece of rebadging) GLE 63 and GLE 63 S, and the latter is effectively the old Performance Pack.

The GLE 63 promises to be quick, with 410kW of power from its 5.5-litre, biturbo V8 powerplant, while the GLE 63 S promises to be quicker, with 430kW from the same architecture.

AMG boasts of a revised chassis that delivers better handling and sharper agility, while the throttle response is said to be tighter and the shifts times even quicker.

The base AMG GLE delivers 700Nm of torque from 1750rpm to 5500rpm (just 250 revs short of the power peak), while the GLE 63 S has 760Nm.

Where the hybrid sips fuel like it's cough syrup, the AMG twins post 11.8 litres/100km on the combined cycle and emit 278 grams of CO2/km.

They counter this with thumping, sports car-like acceleration figures, the GLE 63 S hitting 100km/hi n 4.2 seconds – a tenth ahead of its stablemate – and both cars top out at a governed 250km/h.

Running on standard 265/45 R20 tyres, the AMG models have their own nose styling and chrome-plated tail pipe "embellishers".

In between the AMGs and the hybrid is a pair of petrol engines, starting with the one that runs the 500 e's biturbo V6 3.0-litre motor without all the electronic fizzings. The GLE 400 4Matic delivers 245kW of power and 480Nm of torque.

That's not a patch on the 320kW and 700Nm generated by the GLE 500's 5.5-litre biturbo V8, though. To make up for it, the GLE 400 has an NEDC number of 8.8L/100km, which is 2.2L/100km better than the V8.

Both use seven-speed automatic transmissions, though the GLE 400 has 255/55 R18 tyres standard while the GLE 500 uses the same 255/50 R19 rubber as the hybrid.

There's also the arrival to the M… errr, GLE body of Benz's nine-speed automatic transmission, but it's only coming with the diesels.

The GLE family will have three of those, but two of them are so ridiculously close that Australia is likely to leave one behind. There's the rear-drive-only GLE 250 d, with 150kW and 480Nm from its 2.1-litre turbo four cylinder, while the GLE 250 d 4Matic all-wheel drive has another 20Nm of torque.

The most popular diesel, though, is likely to be the GLE 350 d, which has turbocharging and direct injection to generate is 190kW of power and crunching 620Nm of torque from its 3.0-litres of capacity.

It's also a respectable drinker, using only 6.4L/100km (169g/km of CO2), which is just a litre worse than the rear-drive base diesel despite a lot more performance.

On top of all of that, the GLE range now has six driving programs from its selectable range, including a specific off-road piece of software mapping. And then there's an optional Off-Road Engineering package, which has an Offroad+ setting, much like an AMG has a Sport+ setup.

This harder-core setup delivers a reduction gear for difficult work, a 100 per cent inter-axle diff lock and raised ride height for the air suspension to deliver 285mm of ground clearance and 600mm of wading depth.

There's also underfloor reinforcement against impacts.

While most GLE models have their torque split at 50:50 front to rear, the AMG versions send 60 per cent of their drive rearwards as the default setting.

All the V6 and V8 models, including the diesels, score the Active Curve System, which uses active anti-roll bars at both ends to compensate for cornering forces and keep the body flat in hard driving.