Reversing into tomorrow
The A-Class is a lovely car but its priorities are upside-down and back to front. How about making it drive better? By Colin Overland
If you had three minutes in which to convey to a random stranger the essence of the A200, you’d simply invite them to climb aboard and use the Active Parking Assist with Parktronic feature.
This has everything. A clumsy name. A non-frivolous price (in our case, it comes as part of the £2395 Premium Package). And a deceptively complicated user experience.
It starts when you press the P button on the centre console. This gets the car to start looking for suitable spaces and sounding a gentle ‘bong’ telling you to glance at the central screen, where you’ll see rectangles representing your choice of spaces. Using the touchscreen or touchpad or mini touchpads on the steering wheel, you select your preferred space. It tells you to engage reverse gear and prepare to brake, and then it starts parking.
It does this with the unhesitant decisiveness of a machine, not a driver. If it’s a tight angle it spins the steering wheel like a coked-up croupier, getting the front wheels pointing in the optimal direction before the car starts to move. And when it reverses, it does so quickly and without the reversing sensors sounding – which, if you’re used to reversing sensors, is unsettling.
You soon learn to trust that the steering wheel and throttle are under expert automated control, but you’re unsure about braking. Having been warned that you need to prepare to brake, you don’t know if that means you are required to brake as part of the parking process, or you should be ready to brake in case a cat or a pigeon makes a sudden appearance before the reversing camera.
Adding further to the awkwardness is the uncertainty about where to look. Mirrors? Shoulder? Central screen, which is showing the image from the reversing camera, with your projected route superimposed on it? You end up darting your eyes around between all of these, so not really looking properly at all. When human and machine have successfully parked the car, it’s sort of impressive that the car did some of the work, but you’re never far from the feeling that it was an unnecessary palaver. Parking isn’t that dicult the old way, is it?
Maybe your random stranger, enjoying their three-minute visit to the future, will be indifferent to these concerns. They’ll love the seats, the screens, the voice activation, the augmented reality, the 64-colour ambient lighting, the fabulous audio.
Because it is a lovely cabin – and the novelty hasn’t worn thin in six months – but it’s in a car that really isn’t very special to drive.
Count the cost
Cost new £31,710 Private sale £25,205 Part-exchange £26,905 Cost per mile 14.5p Cost per mile including depreciation £1.24
You’re never far from the feeling that it was an unnecessary palaver. Parking isn’t that hard