Mercedes-Benz is so fanatical about branding individual in-car features, it’s easy to miss the bigger picture. Take the new E-class, which christens its technologies with a jumble of cryptic phrases such as Distance Pilot Distronic, Air Body Control, and Pre-Safe Impulse. But taken together and distilled to a single theme, the E’s safety, connectivity, and semi-autonomous technologies make for a concise story. The E-class is a smart car, indeed, much more so than the Smart, the twee city cart that’s also built by Daimler.
This new E is a car for an age of smart devices, one in which fridges alert you to milk gone bad and toilets text you when they need cleaning. Seven years ago, Mercedes launched Attention Assist, an algorithm that monitored steering inputs and other parameters to detect a drowsy driver. While that feature, denoted in the cluster by an icon of a steaming cup of joe, again is present in this new E-class, it’s practically obviated by Benz’s new Drive Pilot technology, which could just as easily be called “Inattention Assist.”
This driver aid uses half as many radar sensors as in the S-class but still manages to trump the flagship’s self-driving abilities. A single front-facing radar, a stereo camera behind the windshield, and sensors mounted in the rear corners allow for up to 60 seconds of hands-free and attention-free motoring on highways and rural roads. The car even changes lanes for you, once you give it the nod by flashing the turn signal for two seconds.
Don’t blame the lawyers for making you periodically touch the steering wheel. Engineer Jochen Haab, whose 12-person validation team includes three psychologists, says neither the technology nor the driver is ready for set-it-and-forget-it autonomy. He worries that drivers who turn their focus away from the road can’t react quickly enough when these self-driving systems lose the scent. True autonomy, Haab says, would require the ability to see and know what’s beyond the 800-foot horizon of today’s radar, laser, and camera sensors.
Working toward that end, the E-class will be the first production vehicle in Europe equipped for car-to-X communication, where X can denote other vehicles, infrastructure-based signals, or alerts broadcast by road-management agencies. We’ll have to wait a couple of years before it’s available on Mercedes-Benz’s U.S. cars. Rather than short-range, Wi-Fi–based car-to-car or car-to-infrastructure communication, the E-class sends and receives alerts through cloud-based servers via a cellular data connection. With a critical mass of vehicles and stationary sensors, Haab could get all the data he needs to provide an early warning of a traffic jam, an accident, or a pothole repair crew just around a blind bend.
Indeed, a cellphone with Near Field Communication can unlock and start the car, and eventually—belatedly—we Americans also will be allowed to park the E-class or extract it from a tight spot while standing outside the car and sliding our thumbs in circles on our phone’s screen.
There's also the E220d, the first application of Mercedes’ new aluminum-block diesel, and marveled at its tightly controlled noise and vibration. The diesel arguably sounds more refined than the gas engine, even if it is slightly louder under hard acceleration. With 192 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque, the 2.0-liter diesel charges off the line, but it can’t execute passing maneuvers with the same authority as the gas four-cylinder. The diesel should go on sale in the U.S. in late 2018 (likely with E300d badging), provided the smoggy fallout of the VW scandal clears by then. A plug-in hybrid with a gas engine also will arrive by the end of the decade.
Those who want to drive rather than ride in their car may want to hold out for the AMG versions, now offered in six-cylinder E43 or eight-cylinder E63 guise. There will be E coupes, convertibles, and wagons, as well, although we may be relegated to an all-terrain variant of the latter, a lifted thing in the manner of Audi’s Allroad.
Mercedes-Benz’s new nine-speed automatic transmission, used with every engine, pairs with either rear- or all-wheel drive in the E300. In Comfort mode, the gearbox often reacts to full-throttle kickdowns with two distinct and slightly sluggish steps, but Sport and Sport+ modes quickly erase that complaint. There, the gearbox holds a low gear and then snaps off perfectly timed, seamless downshifts as you brake ahead of a turn—these gearchanges would be impressive in an AMG model.
Photos after the cut....
Like a More Accountable Tesla
In other words, Mercedes-Benz’s driver-assistance tech now does everything Tesla’s Autopilot does, albeit with the kind of self-imposed restraint you would expect from an automaker with 130 years in the business. While Tesla’s system drives until it can’t, Mercedes requires the driver to periodically signal his or her consciousness by grabbing the steering wheel or poking one of the touch-sensitive pads on the spokes. Let loose on a Portuguese highway—where we had our first drive opportunity of the new E—the Mercedes sailed with smoother steering, gentler braking, and slower lane changes than a Model S, a demeanor that suggests a more refined system, although not necessarily a more confident one.Don’t blame the lawyers for making you periodically touch the steering wheel. Engineer Jochen Haab, whose 12-person validation team includes three psychologists, says neither the technology nor the driver is ready for set-it-and-forget-it autonomy. He worries that drivers who turn their focus away from the road can’t react quickly enough when these self-driving systems lose the scent. True autonomy, Haab says, would require the ability to see and know what’s beyond the 800-foot horizon of today’s radar, laser, and camera sensors.
Working toward that end, the E-class will be the first production vehicle in Europe equipped for car-to-X communication, where X can denote other vehicles, infrastructure-based signals, or alerts broadcast by road-management agencies. We’ll have to wait a couple of years before it’s available on Mercedes-Benz’s U.S. cars. Rather than short-range, Wi-Fi–based car-to-car or car-to-infrastructure communication, the E-class sends and receives alerts through cloud-based servers via a cellular data connection. With a critical mass of vehicles and stationary sensors, Haab could get all the data he needs to provide an early warning of a traffic jam, an accident, or a pothole repair crew just around a blind bend.
Always Looking Out for You
Until then, whenever a human driver is making the mistakes, the E-class reserves the right to slam on the brakes or guide an evasive steering maneuver to dodge imperiled pedestrians or cars vying to occupy the same space as yours. The optional Pre-Safe Impulse Side system adds radar units to the front corners of the car and inflatable bladders in the outboard bolsters of the front seats. It can predict an imminent side-impact collision and inflate the bladders—without damaging the seat—two-tenths of a second prior to impact, pushing the occupant inward, away from the B-pillar and the intruding car. Pre-Safe Sound plays pink noise (it sounds like a TV that’s lost its signal) through the speakers to contract the stapedius muscles in your ears prior to a crash, reducing the risk of hearing damage during an accident. This is what successful engineering looks like: fixes for problems you never even knew existed.Indeed, a cellphone with Near Field Communication can unlock and start the car, and eventually—belatedly—we Americans also will be allowed to park the E-class or extract it from a tight spot while standing outside the car and sliding our thumbs in circles on our phone’s screen.
It Even Has an Engine!
This E-class is a car so complex and so connected that its internal-combustion engine seems like an afterthought. Or maybe it just needs a proper marketing name: “Active Propulsion Assist”? When it goes on sale in June, the E-class will come with only a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder. That engine makes the same 241 horsepower in the E300 as it does in the C300, but it’s burdened with an extra 400 pounds in Mercedes’ mid-sizer. While it never feels overtaxed, its presence in this car is definitely due to CO2 and fuel-economy dictates, and the entry E-class will be slower than the outgoing base model, which uses a 302-hp V-6. As consolation, the E300 should be slightly cheaper and more efficient than the car it replaces.There's also the E220d, the first application of Mercedes’ new aluminum-block diesel, and marveled at its tightly controlled noise and vibration. The diesel arguably sounds more refined than the gas engine, even if it is slightly louder under hard acceleration. With 192 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque, the 2.0-liter diesel charges off the line, but it can’t execute passing maneuvers with the same authority as the gas four-cylinder. The diesel should go on sale in the U.S. in late 2018 (likely with E300d badging), provided the smoggy fallout of the VW scandal clears by then. A plug-in hybrid with a gas engine also will arrive by the end of the decade.
Those who want to drive rather than ride in their car may want to hold out for the AMG versions, now offered in six-cylinder E43 or eight-cylinder E63 guise. There will be E coupes, convertibles, and wagons, as well, although we may be relegated to an all-terrain variant of the latter, a lifted thing in the manner of Audi’s Allroad.
Mercedes-Benz’s new nine-speed automatic transmission, used with every engine, pairs with either rear- or all-wheel drive in the E300. In Comfort mode, the gearbox often reacts to full-throttle kickdowns with two distinct and slightly sluggish steps, but Sport and Sport+ modes quickly erase that complaint. There, the gearbox holds a low gear and then snaps off perfectly timed, seamless downshifts as you brake ahead of a turn—these gearchanges would be impressive in an AMG model.
Photos after the cut....
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