The 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLB gets good infotainment, but don’t get the AI

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  The Mercedes-Benz GLB is up against rivals like the Volvo XC40 and Audi Q3. [credit: Mercedes-Benz ]

If there were any doubt about the utter dominance of the market by SUVs, consider that prior to 2020, Mercedes-that storied brand built on luxury sedans-offered six different classes of them. Wait-seven, if you count the hatchback GLA they slot in as an SUV (and I do).

Well, brace yourselves. There's now an eighth. The GLB250 parks a squarish, upright, proper-looking SUV into the paper-thin slot under the C-Class-based GLC and over the definition-challenged GLA. But the GLB grabs its design clay far more from the big GLS and positively rectilinear G-Class than any of the softer, more pliably styled Mercedes SUVs. In fact, that boxier form factor makes the new GLB an even more authoritative-looking family box with wheels than many roaming the streets today, somewhat aimless in their design.

And one step further into family firmament, the GLB offers a third-row seat-nearly unheard of in this size class, and something you must venture way up into the mid-sized GLE class among other Mercedes models to find.

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