Mercedes raises the luxury bar – again
Armed with sci-fi tech, your new Merc S-Class and EQS will do everything to keep you safe, entertained and relaxed.
It’s time, once again, for Mercedes to take things up a notch in terms of comfort and technological innovation. As the new S-Class nears its September 2020 reveal, with Merc’s all-electric EQS not far from becoming reality, Stuttgart is showing off what’s to come in its next generation of luxury cars.
Under the skin, E-Active Body Control will suspend Merc’s luxury cars with a magic carpet-like ride, tilting in corners, scanning the road ahead and raising its own ride height to trounce the menace that is the speed bump. Optional rearwheel steering improves manoeuvrability, and new airbag tech shrouds the rear passengers and partitions the front occupants with a wall of cushioning.
Merc’s infotainment system, meanwhile, has dramatically evolved: MBUX turns into My MBUX for the new S-Class, and brings with it a new suite of technologies. ‘We started from the back coming forward,’ says Sajjad Khan, Merc board member for CASE (connected, autonomous, shared & services and electric), ‘but we haven’t forgotten or compromised on anything.’
‘We designed the new S-Class interior around this central screen and created a whole new digital approach,’ says Gorden Wagener, chief design ocer. ‘Of course, it’s a little early to talk about the EQS, but that will get this new MBUX system as well.’
Merc’s new screen layout uses OLED technology (the screen tech that needs no backlight, is up to 30 per cent more energy ecient than LCD tech and allows for deeper blacks and more stark contrasts – great for combating sunlight glare) and haptic feedback like that seen on current high-end Audis. Merc also says there are 27 fewer physical buttons inside. But there’s more to it than a glitzy touchscreen. ‘We put the customer in the middle and thought about what ingredients we would like to put in the vehicle which bring value to them,’ says Khan. ‘We didn’t want to aspire for anything big or small [in terms of screen size], we just came from a customer perspective.’
The new technological showpiece has to be the optional augmented-reality head-up display. It’s an evolution of MBUX’s augmented navigation, which we’ve tested in a Does It Work (October 2019), and effectively makes the windscreen a 77inch display complete with animated arrows and graphics for displaying your distance from the car in front.
The customisable driver’s instruments have a 3D effect, created via an LCD screen and a mesh a few millimetres in front that has light displayed on it, with two cameras tracking eye movements so the screen doesn’t blur. Interior Assist anticipates your actions to reduce the amount of steps to adjust or operate key cockpit features, and fingerprint scanners and face cameras are incorporated into the displays for an extra level of security for your Mercedes Me account. The voice control has evolved to act on more natural speech (say ‘I’m cold’ instead of ‘set climate control to 25 degrees’, for example) and act like a smart home speaker by answering general knowledge questions and more. Media can be shared between any of the screens.
Every S-Class will be built with the potential to use all Merc’s latest tech, even if the buyer does not initially tick every box. If that owner, or a later buyer, decides to acquire more tech, it can be bought via the app store and activated remotely. ‘From the technology perspective, everything is there from the start,’ Khan says. ‘Even after selling the car, we could put them in, starting from over-the-air updates via the cloud.’
How long until we see tech from the S-Class and EQS trickle down to the rest of the range? ‘The whole technology landscape at the moment is developing very fast,’ says Khan. ‘My MBUX will be rolling out very quickly in the coming cars. Any new car that will be launched will have this technology built in.’
‘Everything is there from the start. We can put features in via over-the-air updates’ Sajjad Khan