New Mercedes E-Class aims to prove that smart is sexy

Singapore

MERCEDES-BENZ has a new boss. The brand launched a revised version of its E-Class online last night, an executive sedan that is in many ways the head honcho of Mercedes' product family.

"It's for us, the most successful car that we've had, or the one with the biggest volume," Claudius Steinhoff said of the E-Class, which has found 14 million buyers if you include every model in an ancestry that goes back to 1946. "I would also call it the centre of our brand."

Mr Steinhoff happens to be a new boss of Mercedes himself, having taken the helm of parent company Daimler's Southeast Asia office here in October.

Mercedes dealer Cycle & Carriage has three versions for sale, with prices starting at S$271,888 (including Certificate Of Entitlement) for the E 200 Avantgarde version. A more traditional looking E 200 Exclusive variant costs S$280,888, while the sporty E 200 AMG Line costs S$290,888.

Daimler representatives told The Business Times that models with different engines will only join the lineup here next year.

In the meantime, Mercedes is hoping a raft of cosmetic changes and new digital features will make customers want to take an E 200 home. Mid-life revamps for cars can be so subtle as to be undetectable, but it looks as if surgeons didn't spare the knife with the E-Class. It has new lamps and bumpers at both ends designed to give it a sleeker appearance, and Mercedes has done much to make the various versions look distinct from one another. They have different grille shapes - two are vaguely hexagonal while the third is trapezoidal - and the car is available with no fewer than three different steering wheels.

While potential buyers ponder the various cosmetic options, Mercedes is making a push to wow them with digital tech. It retains a pair of sharp, bright 12.3-inch digital screens for infotainment and cockpit displays, but now has touch-sensitive control pads on the steering wheel that offer haptic feedback.

The car itself has gained new features, such as a self-parking system that can identify empty parking spots even if there are no other cars around to create an obvious target area for the car to slot itself into.

It has a 4G internet connection so drivers can use a companion app to check if they remembered to lock the doors. The Mercedes me connect app can also guide someone to the car if it's lost in a carpark.

But while Mercedes' approach to comfort has typically involved plush seating, a quiet cabin and a smooth ride over bumps, the brand's engineers have worked on ways to use digital tech to pamper occupants. The E-Class can set the driver seat position automatically when the occupant keys in their height, for example. The reasoning there is that the perfect driving posture means less fatigue behind the wheel.

A feature called Energizing Coach takes heartbeat and sleep quality data from Garmin wearable trackers to figure out the driver's status. It then recommends programmes that tweak cabin temperature, ambient lighting, the fragrance dispenser, music selection and massage chair settings to soothe the driver.

Mr Steinhoff said the new E-Class offers drivers the chance to "hyper-personalise" the driving experience to their tastes or stress levels.

But the car's 4G connection and the things it enables also give some insight as to how Mercedes intends to insert its cars into drivers' lives beyond the road.

The Mercedes me connect app works with Google Home, for example, so on the drive back from work a customer could turn the living room air-con on by speaking the right commands. Mr Steinhoff told BT the car's voice-activated user-interface is constantly learning, so it gets smarter with use. That's something customers will probably appreciate, especially since everyone expects a certain level of intelligence from the boss.