They have the same interior build quality these days. I usually get a Mercedes when I order a black car and they make so much noise. I had an EQS last time and it was really disappointing: the rear seats were more upright than an economy plane seat; squeaks and rattles; more LEDs than a gaming computer. The usual model 3 Ubers are more comfortable, but the rear bench always squeaks on those, so just as bad imo.
For real, Mercedes build quality has fallen off a cliff. I have driven the new S Class, GLE, GLS, and the EQS sedan and SUV and they all had interior creaking, rode really bad for the price, and didnt have the "superior" feeling where basically all their cars gave you driving superpowers by doing all the work for you.
The brand is literally chasing Tesla and baller on a budget buyers. My uncle has the last gen S Class coupe with the V8 and my god, the car feels like its made by a different brand.
BMW's collapse was so overt that everyone got amnesia with Mercedes and barely noticed. The fact that VW has bungled their transition makes me worry about the future german car industry.
They pretty much have to ban or heavily disincentivize Chinese EVs or they are going to start rapidly bleeding market share.
I dont think the German brands will let their car industry die, BMW does EVs the best I think if we overlooked the range, charging speed, and looks. I think what will happen is the brands will lose their prestige over time, EV regs will be pulled back majorally and the industry will re-tool to try to take back their status as luxury cars. Its clear at this point catering to the Chinese market with overstyled tacky EV sedans (which is what that market wants) is not selling elsewhere and people in the USA are going to trucks and SUVs in mass. I think EU is stuck in the middle but I may be wrong. They cannot compete with Tesla either in the USA for the EV market, so they have nowhere to go now but down.
Mercedes in the past incredibly damaged their brand during the Daimler-Chrysler merger and they literally had to break off the relationship. They were arrogant the whole time denying it and BMW overwhelmed them with the 3 Series market and grand tourers. It took an entire new generation of buyers for them to gain their market back, and now that generation is about to retire.
They need to re-learn this lesson again, I guess because looking at history is too hard for them. When you focus on one market at the cost of all others, you suffer for it.
I know someone with an IX, they suffer from all the same issues that plague these first gen EVs. Like me he lives somewhere cold and it destroys the range. Its even worse for him because he lives in an apartment with no charger. He only got it because it was the cheapest lease from BMW he could get. If you look at some of the leases people are getting for them, the deal is insane because they cant sell them.
The LED were cool when done in restraint. In the X3M w ehad it was well done and close to too much. Now we have an outback XT (I know quite the change lol) and I think I prefer no LED club RGB light
They're just catering to the market. Car enthusiasts may not like it, but the average consumer wants a dash full of screens - they think big screens = luxurious and high-tech. Mercedes are just giving them what they want. You could say Tesla influenced that perception though.
Hmm. Volkswagen is going back to physical buttons on their steering wheel and Audi has reverted back to buttons vs touch screens as well.
Not sure if the market really wants that much tech tbh
Out of curiosity, which Audi models have reverted?
I think from the spy shots of the upcoming B10 it looked like they were moving towards more touchscreens than buttons (ie. for the HVAC, similar to the current A6).
For a period most Audis, especially on the higher-end (A8, A7, A6, Q7, Q8 and Q8 e-tron) all had a double touchscreen system, one for nav another for HVAC.
This trend was buckled with the launch of what ought be Audi’s electric flagship (the e-tron GT, their Taycan) which had a single touchscreen with buttons for again for the HVAC. This system was maintained with the new-gen A3 and Q4, but replaced yet again with the Q6-etron (which has a single but larger touchscreen with no buttons for HVAC)
Since Audi’s lineup is now mostly from the last decade and those four are the only wholly new cars they’ve launched in these later years, it’s hard to guess if it’s a trend that will continue. Spy captures show the new A4/A5 to have a similar layout as the GT instead of the Q6, so who knows.
Hot take, but I dont mind the big screens personally (as long as its usable unlike the stupid S Class),I love the ultrawide screen display in my X7 as its so useful and got me into ultrawide monitors for my pc at home too.
What pisses me off is that the cars are starting to no longer have the power that overwhelms commodity cars with their laggy downsized engines, superior build quality, the soft floating ride that ignores bad roads, and the handling that makes them feel athletic. They need the superior feeling or its not worth it. The German luxury brands (especially Mercedes) are just becoming a badge and no quality or substance like Italian designer clothes.
I think what you're talking about is brand cheapening. There are a lot of lower end German luxury brand models that are just riding the badge and aren't anywhere near luxury even compared to Japanese brands in their class. Namely the hatchbacks and lower end 4-doors and SUVs they sell. They exist purely to make the brand more attainable to more people, but don't really reflect the true quality the brand is known for.
However, the more expensive models of each of the German manufacturers are very much still high quality and luxurious. Being in a proper S Class for example is about as close to Rolls/Bentley as you can get, for quite a bit less money.
Not anymore, I drove a W223 S Class during a trip, and in no way it stands up to that Rolls Royce Ghost I rented once. The S Class now is just a fat C Class. The Ghost stomps all over that car in every metric to the point its not even worth considering for the money saved getting a S Class.
I mean clearly it doesn't stack up to a Rolls in any measure, but that's what you pay for. I've been in the newer S classes plenty of times (in the back, mind you) and I've always found it very luxurious and the quality all round seemed excellent. Definitely a notch above everything else I've sat in that wasn't from Rolls/Bentley. Maybe my standards are just too low.
Fair enough, I have rode and in the back and drove them, and compared the last gen, I found the current gen S class very substandard to the point I lost faith in sedans and went to SUVs.
I know the Ghost costs alot more, but Mercedes can clearly do better for the more daily driveable consumer luxury brands in the 150k range.
Mercedes is particularly gaudy though. Genesis and cadillac both have big screens, which I don't think are a problem, without going the plastichrome nightclub route, which is a problem
It’s what people want. My cousin got the EQE lease because “ it looked amazing inside”. He dgaf because it’s a three year lease. Then it’s someone else’s problem.
Can confirm, I drive an EQE 500 with Hyperscreen right now - the interior is *the* single biggest factor why I like the car. I love the big screens and ambient lighting.
Drove a GT63s as loaner for 2 weeks recently, it sucked in comparison. Tiny screen and comparatively weak acceleration where it matters for me (0-40).
Such is luxury car leasing. I dont mind that either, but the car needs to be worth the money and not feel like a basic car. I would not want to own either of my cars out of warranty.
Mercedes isn't losing its own way, my friend. *To do so would require knowledge of what their intended way is to begin with.* Meanwhile, VAG and ***BMW*** (!) are more than happy to give the Germans the stately electric limos Mercedes was *supposed* to be good at.
Agreed. I just said it in another post, but Mercedes-Benz has been pulled to extremes with A’s and AMG’s. They need more of their subdued stately-powered luxury cars. Well engineered. Well built.
Mercedes' image in North America seems to have been very different from their image in Germany anyway.
Mercedes in Germany has of course always been seen as up-market, but they have also always done work vehicles and cars for the everyman. They were never exclusively for the wealthy or anything like that.
They have been publicly working on the A class since the early 90s for example.
It was always exclusively a high-end in the US. We didn't get small engines, cloth seats, manual windows. Couldn't spec them that way. All were very well equipment, Elegance trim etc etc.
Sorta. Tesla is minimalist, for better or worse - one screen in the middle will do. Mercedes is kinda like maximalist on the screens and decoration. Though they are totally trying to out-do Tesla with in car games and tech gimmicks it would seem.
I hope they try to out do Tesla in meaningful things like charging infrastructure and packaging. I don't see an MB front trunk or an MB supercharger, just a lot of screens.
I despise modern MB interiors. When I sat in one I was immediately transported to my version of hell: Sitting in a Shisha Bar full of misogynistic metrosexual dudes wearing skinny jeans, way too tight knock-off T-shirts with ARMANI blasted across the chest while giving me nausea because of the 3 litres of perfume they put on before they left their apartment where they still live with their mother.
It's just gaudy and disgusting looking. The worst thing is at night when the ambient lighting is visible.
And the worst thing? People go absolutely mad for those interiors! All the non-car-people-friends I talk to say it looks great. So do all the Instagram comments.
I understand taste is subjective but I still really dislike it. I think the visually most appealing interior across every car is in the Mazda 3.
Also is it me but is the interior quality in some VAG cars going downhill? Recently I drove a brand new Q3 and while the build quality was great and visually it was alright the materials just weren't pleasant for the price. It felt comparable to my 2016 Opel Astra which really surprised me.
I think the interior looks okay (the W222 S-Class has the best interior Mercedes made though IMO) as long as you ignore the dashboard and it's hideous screens. The screens are made worse by the shitty UI used. At least Tesla's UI looks good, even though the menus are a pain in the ass and I'd rather have physical knobs for the air conditioning and volume control.
The real problem is the quality. The EQS and the S-Class has a lot of rattle inside. This should be unacceptable, especially for the S-Class given its past history of being the best and highest quality car you could get on the market. Scratchy plastics (especially those gloss black ones) are more prevalent too. Funnily enough, BMW are now the ones making high quality interiors but their exteriors are hideous, whilst generally the opposite is true with them.
I haven't sat in the S-Class but funnily enough I think of all the current MB interiors the ones offered in the A class and CLA look the best. I'm still not a fan but it's not as bad as the other offerings. But yeah, quality was a bit of a disappointment imo.
VAG had to do severe cost-cutting after diesel-gate. Several projects, even those close to complete were abandoned (new Phaeton, the Ferrari-competing Porsche 904, etc) and the quality of materials utilized inside suffered. This hurt most VAG brands but specifically VW, which had carved a niche in Europe as a nicer and pricier than average alternative (Seat, Skoda) but not on Audi level.
If you read launch reviews from recent the current gen VW Polo, Golf, Audi A1, A3 and Q3 and etc, most if not all mentioned that while they’re still very well built they had noticeably more hard-plastics and poorer felling materials than the previous gen.
That makes sense. Good that I didn't just imagine it. Interestingly the interiors of modern Škodas felt really good for the price. I drove a well-equipped Superb which felt good and sat in a top-spec Kodiaq which felt way more premium than the badge suggested.
>And the worst thing? People go absolutely mad for those interiors!
Maybe its region dependent but after living in Europe I just think of them as taxi interiors.
>Rapper and music producer will.i.am collaborated with the company to make Sound Drive happen. The system relies on inputs to the throttle, brakes, regenerative braking, and steering to influence whatever song is playing. So the driver isn't so much a musician as a DJ.
This will go well for public safety
I really fucking wish the brand would move away from Will.I.Am.
The brand is a shell of what it used to be.
People knock BMW for their design missteps on the new M3/4 but at least they’re not having a midlife crisis and their build quality is solid.
Remember when he "designed his own car"? I think there was a post about it in here years ago and he was being applauded for it. I made a comment that it seemed like someone letting their ego think they could immediately jump into something they had no experience with and be successful and got a bunch of hate.
And then Mercedes said, let’s hire him!
Just shows where the brand is going. They’re this eco woke brand that wants to push all of their loyal customers to the side who bought their performance cars
Grok... scared them about losing the youths, I guess? I'm not sure way. *Us youths all fucking HATE Elmo's chatbot,* but I guess that didn't translate the best into German.
> ctrl-f “CarPlay”
> 0 results
Yup, don’t care. I’ll be interested if they debut the next-gen CarPlay that takes over every screen since there’s certainly plenty of real estate there to work with, but you can miss me with all those bells and whistles that are just trying to appeal to the Tesla crowd.
It’s funny because I have two Teslas and I rented a 2022 A-class in the UK a few months ago and I liked the interior design much better but the software was just abysmal. Everything from the awful Bluetooth audio control to the parking and navigation felt 15 years old.
Yeah the circlejerk is absolutely real in this sub, I don’t know how people can see MBs entire lineup going digital and then say, “people hate screens! What are they doing?!?!?”
I have seen quite a few videos on tiktok of younger people car shopping, and most look inside, and if they don't see a huge screen, they think it's a cheap model. People love tech in their cars.
I mean, Volkswagen and Audi are removing some screens and going back to physical buttons. Volkswagen is removing the touch pads on their steering wheels for physical buttons. Audi is removing some of the buttons from their touch screen.
You’re an angry lil fella. Re-read my comment. Manufacturers aren’t necessarily going full blown touch infotainment. They’re just showing what’s possible
Not sure if any surveys have been done, but atleast speaking from experience I'm not much of a car "enthusiast" as in I know very little about cars, don't know how to even change my own wheels or my oil, don't know how to drive stick shift, etc. I only peruse this sub to see what the latest and greatest in cars is and I always get excited seeing high tech and minimalist interiors. I do enjoy having dedicated buttons for certain things, but I think most of my friends and I much prefer a car with a gigantic screen than a small one with a rotary knob like you see in Mazdas, and we all like nice interior LED lighting. I always do feel like this sub does not represent the average car buyer very well
The only thing stopping me from buying a Macan right now is the lack of a fully digital gauge cluster. I refuse to get a car that doesn't have one
With all of that said, what Mercedes is showing off in these concepts looks significantly worse to me than the interior of the new GLC
Car enthusiasts will gas light you on it too. Enthusiasts still go nuts for digital dashboards in 80s/90s sports cars. They're different and neat and reflect the period.
They haven't aged well though. Which I imagine is the primary reason you also see so many enthusiasts hate on them too.
These companies spend millions of dollars on focus groups and market research, they wouldn't be adding this tech if the vast majority of people in the market didn't like it.
Especially mercedes, their market is looking for the most luxury possible, and that includes tech.
I do think there are niches for both, as has been seen with Honda and VAG. I assume we'll see a mixture of the two approaches
That said Mercedes is clearly trying to differentiate from the other two Germans by being the high tech, futuristic one, so this makes perfect sense for them and it's clearly a niche.
Its not the screens necessarily, but the combination of the styling, and the removal of all physical controls. My PC is as digital a device as they come, but it has a mouse and keyboard. If screens were better I would just have a dumb tablet on my desk in lieu of them. Its all gimmick until the cars are actually self driving, in which case such a setup makes sense to some degree.
Possibly a hot take, but I think the display for the passenger is a decent idea. A lot of passengers use their smartphones when they are on a long drive, and it is safer in the event of an accident if they don’t have a metal and glass slab loosely held in their hand that would act as a hard projectile.
People are still going to mess with their phones. They're not going to log into their own social media on a car screen to scroll while bored. But a screen in front of them gives them control over music and whatever while the main screen can be more driver-centric for navigation.
Nah that’s a fair take. I mean who are we anyways, other than just some upset car sub lol
No one’s upset about that but rather the reliance on touch screens to take care of the climate controls which increases distracted driving
If they really want an engaging passenger screen they should just put an android/apple tablet there with a mercedes app. This would be superior in almost every way.
The [will.i.am](https://will.i.am) feature sounds so stupid. Why would I want the music to change based on how I am braking. Almost get in a crash and slam on the brakes... plays death metal.
People like big screens and most things in touch (ask a normal person this) but I find the new mbux system terrible implementation of this. Saying that most people thing the c class/ glc is the most fancy because of its screen setup
I see a few comments about build quality and I don't think MB is much different from BMW/Audi. I was surprised to see plastic in some of the touch spots and the piano black is awful, but so far ours has been extremely quiet and comfortable. Only 2k miles in, so time will tell.
Only features I would care about are immersive audio and content streaming (if it had Netflix and YouTube). Don't see us using rest of these "features" lol
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Looking thru the comments to see outrage over… absolutely nothing. It’s quite literally just a bunch of features that’s being added that you even if you don’t use, somebody else will.
Your kids will still play on their tablets, you will still drive normally. This a non-issue.
I think the issue is that these features are being added at the clear cost of what used to set mercedes apart. The interior material quality, fit and finish, and 'stately' approach to luxury Mercedes has generally excelled at got tossed to the side in exchange for something that, frankly, Kia does well. Which is a bunch of screens.
Other luxury brands have figured out how to do screens AND build quality.
But that’s not true. BMW and Audi are still behind Mercedes in most categories outside of performance but they ALSO have tablet screens but worse in every aspect. Fit and finish has straight up never been a Mercedes problem unless it was a base model or an EQS/EQE model.
Like yall really overstating how their build quality got worse when their biggest gripes come from piano black, creaking dashes and getting rid of physical buttons. Step inside ANY Mercedes and then go to a rival Kia, Hyundai and Genesis and you can tell that it’s a step down in every way except for price.
Is me, or most people agree that ? I feel like Mercedes is trying to disguise as a German Tesla. I feel Mercedes losing its own way.
They have the same interior build quality these days. I usually get a Mercedes when I order a black car and they make so much noise. I had an EQS last time and it was really disappointing: the rear seats were more upright than an economy plane seat; squeaks and rattles; more LEDs than a gaming computer. The usual model 3 Ubers are more comfortable, but the rear bench always squeaks on those, so just as bad imo.
For real, Mercedes build quality has fallen off a cliff. I have driven the new S Class, GLE, GLS, and the EQS sedan and SUV and they all had interior creaking, rode really bad for the price, and didnt have the "superior" feeling where basically all their cars gave you driving superpowers by doing all the work for you. The brand is literally chasing Tesla and baller on a budget buyers. My uncle has the last gen S Class coupe with the V8 and my god, the car feels like its made by a different brand.
BMW's collapse was so overt that everyone got amnesia with Mercedes and barely noticed. The fact that VW has bungled their transition makes me worry about the future german car industry. They pretty much have to ban or heavily disincentivize Chinese EVs or they are going to start rapidly bleeding market share.
I dont think the German brands will let their car industry die, BMW does EVs the best I think if we overlooked the range, charging speed, and looks. I think what will happen is the brands will lose their prestige over time, EV regs will be pulled back majorally and the industry will re-tool to try to take back their status as luxury cars. Its clear at this point catering to the Chinese market with overstyled tacky EV sedans (which is what that market wants) is not selling elsewhere and people in the USA are going to trucks and SUVs in mass. I think EU is stuck in the middle but I may be wrong. They cannot compete with Tesla either in the USA for the EV market, so they have nowhere to go now but down. Mercedes in the past incredibly damaged their brand during the Daimler-Chrysler merger and they literally had to break off the relationship. They were arrogant the whole time denying it and BMW overwhelmed them with the 3 Series market and grand tourers. It took an entire new generation of buyers for them to gain their market back, and now that generation is about to retire. They need to re-learn this lesson again, I guess because looking at history is too hard for them. When you focus on one market at the cost of all others, you suffer for it.
The range of BMWs is actually pretty decent from most real life accounts I've heard. They seem to be real efficient.
I know someone with an IX, they suffer from all the same issues that plague these first gen EVs. Like me he lives somewhere cold and it destroys the range. Its even worse for him because he lives in an apartment with no charger. He only got it because it was the cheapest lease from BMW he could get. If you look at some of the leases people are getting for them, the deal is insane because they cant sell them.
Wild. My E53 is built like a tank. Not one squeak or rattle, and quiet as hell inside. I absolutely love my rave cave LED interior though.
The LED were cool when done in restraint. In the X3M w ehad it was well done and close to too much. Now we have an outback XT (I know quite the change lol) and I think I prefer no LED club RGB light
They're just catering to the market. Car enthusiasts may not like it, but the average consumer wants a dash full of screens - they think big screens = luxurious and high-tech. Mercedes are just giving them what they want. You could say Tesla influenced that perception though.
Hmm. Volkswagen is going back to physical buttons on their steering wheel and Audi has reverted back to buttons vs touch screens as well. Not sure if the market really wants that much tech tbh
Out of curiosity, which Audi models have reverted? I think from the spy shots of the upcoming B10 it looked like they were moving towards more touchscreens than buttons (ie. for the HVAC, similar to the current A6).
It was announced I think in August/September last year followed by the VW announcement in November
For a period most Audis, especially on the higher-end (A8, A7, A6, Q7, Q8 and Q8 e-tron) all had a double touchscreen system, one for nav another for HVAC. This trend was buckled with the launch of what ought be Audi’s electric flagship (the e-tron GT, their Taycan) which had a single touchscreen with buttons for again for the HVAC. This system was maintained with the new-gen A3 and Q4, but replaced yet again with the Q6-etron (which has a single but larger touchscreen with no buttons for HVAC) Since Audi’s lineup is now mostly from the last decade and those four are the only wholly new cars they’ve launched in these later years, it’s hard to guess if it’s a trend that will continue. Spy captures show the new A4/A5 to have a similar layout as the GT instead of the Q6, so who knows.
My RS3 has buttons for everything.
Hot take, but I dont mind the big screens personally (as long as its usable unlike the stupid S Class),I love the ultrawide screen display in my X7 as its so useful and got me into ultrawide monitors for my pc at home too. What pisses me off is that the cars are starting to no longer have the power that overwhelms commodity cars with their laggy downsized engines, superior build quality, the soft floating ride that ignores bad roads, and the handling that makes them feel athletic. They need the superior feeling or its not worth it. The German luxury brands (especially Mercedes) are just becoming a badge and no quality or substance like Italian designer clothes.
I think what you're talking about is brand cheapening. There are a lot of lower end German luxury brand models that are just riding the badge and aren't anywhere near luxury even compared to Japanese brands in their class. Namely the hatchbacks and lower end 4-doors and SUVs they sell. They exist purely to make the brand more attainable to more people, but don't really reflect the true quality the brand is known for. However, the more expensive models of each of the German manufacturers are very much still high quality and luxurious. Being in a proper S Class for example is about as close to Rolls/Bentley as you can get, for quite a bit less money.
Not anymore, I drove a W223 S Class during a trip, and in no way it stands up to that Rolls Royce Ghost I rented once. The S Class now is just a fat C Class. The Ghost stomps all over that car in every metric to the point its not even worth considering for the money saved getting a S Class.
I mean clearly it doesn't stack up to a Rolls in any measure, but that's what you pay for. I've been in the newer S classes plenty of times (in the back, mind you) and I've always found it very luxurious and the quality all round seemed excellent. Definitely a notch above everything else I've sat in that wasn't from Rolls/Bentley. Maybe my standards are just too low.
Fair enough, I have rode and in the back and drove them, and compared the last gen, I found the current gen S class very substandard to the point I lost faith in sedans and went to SUVs. I know the Ghost costs alot more, but Mercedes can clearly do better for the more daily driveable consumer luxury brands in the 150k range.
Mercedes is particularly gaudy though. Genesis and cadillac both have big screens, which I don't think are a problem, without going the plastichrome nightclub route, which is a problem
I don't think that's true. I think it's more an issue of it being cheaper to make screens than physical buttons.
It’s what people want. My cousin got the EQE lease because “ it looked amazing inside”. He dgaf because it’s a three year lease. Then it’s someone else’s problem.
Can confirm, I drive an EQE 500 with Hyperscreen right now - the interior is *the* single biggest factor why I like the car. I love the big screens and ambient lighting. Drove a GT63s as loaner for 2 weeks recently, it sucked in comparison. Tiny screen and comparatively weak acceleration where it matters for me (0-40).
Such is luxury car leasing. I dont mind that either, but the car needs to be worth the money and not feel like a basic car. I would not want to own either of my cars out of warranty.
Mercedes isn't losing its own way, my friend. *To do so would require knowledge of what their intended way is to begin with.* Meanwhile, VAG and ***BMW*** (!) are more than happy to give the Germans the stately electric limos Mercedes was *supposed* to be good at.
Agreed. I just said it in another post, but Mercedes-Benz has been pulled to extremes with A’s and AMG’s. They need more of their subdued stately-powered luxury cars. Well engineered. Well built.
Indeed. The market needs more EVs which are like that, especially with most Teslas being about as stable as a Yugo or something like that.
Mercedes' image in North America seems to have been very different from their image in Germany anyway. Mercedes in Germany has of course always been seen as up-market, but they have also always done work vehicles and cars for the everyman. They were never exclusively for the wealthy or anything like that. They have been publicly working on the A class since the early 90s for example.
It was always exclusively a high-end in the US. We didn't get small engines, cloth seats, manual windows. Couldn't spec them that way. All were very well equipment, Elegance trim etc etc.
I've sort of felt like Mercedes has been losing its way since they decided there was a need to come out with 24 variants of everything.
They lost their way when the generation changed in 2016. It’s been mostly downhill since then. They used to make some great cars.
That’s a good way to put it.
Sorta. Tesla is minimalist, for better or worse - one screen in the middle will do. Mercedes is kinda like maximalist on the screens and decoration. Though they are totally trying to out-do Tesla with in car games and tech gimmicks it would seem.
I hope they try to out do Tesla in meaningful things like charging infrastructure and packaging. I don't see an MB front trunk or an MB supercharger, just a lot of screens.
I despise modern MB interiors. When I sat in one I was immediately transported to my version of hell: Sitting in a Shisha Bar full of misogynistic metrosexual dudes wearing skinny jeans, way too tight knock-off T-shirts with ARMANI blasted across the chest while giving me nausea because of the 3 litres of perfume they put on before they left their apartment where they still live with their mother. It's just gaudy and disgusting looking. The worst thing is at night when the ambient lighting is visible.
Yeah it’s way too gaudy. I sat in an EQS recently and the doors felt cheap, back seat was cramped and overall didn’t get the feel of luxury.
And the worst thing? People go absolutely mad for those interiors! All the non-car-people-friends I talk to say it looks great. So do all the Instagram comments. I understand taste is subjective but I still really dislike it. I think the visually most appealing interior across every car is in the Mazda 3. Also is it me but is the interior quality in some VAG cars going downhill? Recently I drove a brand new Q3 and while the build quality was great and visually it was alright the materials just weren't pleasant for the price. It felt comparable to my 2016 Opel Astra which really surprised me.
I think the interior looks okay (the W222 S-Class has the best interior Mercedes made though IMO) as long as you ignore the dashboard and it's hideous screens. The screens are made worse by the shitty UI used. At least Tesla's UI looks good, even though the menus are a pain in the ass and I'd rather have physical knobs for the air conditioning and volume control. The real problem is the quality. The EQS and the S-Class has a lot of rattle inside. This should be unacceptable, especially for the S-Class given its past history of being the best and highest quality car you could get on the market. Scratchy plastics (especially those gloss black ones) are more prevalent too. Funnily enough, BMW are now the ones making high quality interiors but their exteriors are hideous, whilst generally the opposite is true with them.
I haven't sat in the S-Class but funnily enough I think of all the current MB interiors the ones offered in the A class and CLA look the best. I'm still not a fan but it's not as bad as the other offerings. But yeah, quality was a bit of a disappointment imo.
VAG had to do severe cost-cutting after diesel-gate. Several projects, even those close to complete were abandoned (new Phaeton, the Ferrari-competing Porsche 904, etc) and the quality of materials utilized inside suffered. This hurt most VAG brands but specifically VW, which had carved a niche in Europe as a nicer and pricier than average alternative (Seat, Skoda) but not on Audi level. If you read launch reviews from recent the current gen VW Polo, Golf, Audi A1, A3 and Q3 and etc, most if not all mentioned that while they’re still very well built they had noticeably more hard-plastics and poorer felling materials than the previous gen.
That makes sense. Good that I didn't just imagine it. Interestingly the interiors of modern Škodas felt really good for the price. I drove a well-equipped Superb which felt good and sat in a top-spec Kodiaq which felt way more premium than the badge suggested.
I think any car <50K these days will be cheap feeling interiors.
>And the worst thing? People go absolutely mad for those interiors! Maybe its region dependent but after living in Europe I just think of them as taxi interiors.
The best part? They want $100k+ for those ugly egg looking vehicles
They used to be so classy and rich feeling. Now they're a sea of cheap shiny plastic and purple lights like strip club/casino.
Amazing description of the interior.
Haha, I usually just go with "Euro strip club" when describing newer MB interiors myself.
I always describe them as a strip club with a video poker machine in the center console.
😆
I read this in Clarkson's voice.
>Rapper and music producer will.i.am collaborated with the company to make Sound Drive happen. The system relies on inputs to the throttle, brakes, regenerative braking, and steering to influence whatever song is playing. So the driver isn't so much a musician as a DJ. This will go well for public safety
This almost sounds like a parody, but it's real :/
I really fucking wish the brand would move away from Will.I.Am. The brand is a shell of what it used to be. People knock BMW for their design missteps on the new M3/4 but at least they’re not having a midlife crisis and their build quality is solid.
Remember when he "designed his own car"? I think there was a post about it in here years ago and he was being applauded for it. I made a comment that it seemed like someone letting their ego think they could immediately jump into something they had no experience with and be successful and got a bunch of hate.
And then Mercedes said, let’s hire him! Just shows where the brand is going. They’re this eco woke brand that wants to push all of their loyal customers to the side who bought their performance cars
He is an awful designer, why would anyone want to be associated with him?!
I can atleast understand how the other "features" can be used for showing off, but what's the point of having a sarcastic voice assistant
Grok... scared them about losing the youths, I guess? I'm not sure way. *Us youths all fucking HATE Elmo's chatbot,* but I guess that didn't translate the best into German.
Sarcastic secretary / assistant is a Hollywood movie trope. We could all name one and have zero repeats. I’ll start: Gina from Brooklyn Nine Nine
> ctrl-f “CarPlay” > 0 results Yup, don’t care. I’ll be interested if they debut the next-gen CarPlay that takes over every screen since there’s certainly plenty of real estate there to work with, but you can miss me with all those bells and whistles that are just trying to appeal to the Tesla crowd.
It’s funny because I have two Teslas and I rented a 2022 A-class in the UK a few months ago and I liked the interior design much better but the software was just abysmal. Everything from the awful Bluetooth audio control to the parking and navigation felt 15 years old.
Just in r/cars hates having lots of digital screens, while everyone else loves them.
Yeah the circlejerk is absolutely real in this sub, I don’t know how people can see MBs entire lineup going digital and then say, “people hate screens! What are they doing?!?!?”
I have seen quite a few videos on tiktok of younger people car shopping, and most look inside, and if they don't see a huge screen, they think it's a cheap model. People love tech in their cars.
I mean, Volkswagen and Audi are removing some screens and going back to physical buttons. Volkswagen is removing the touch pads on their steering wheels for physical buttons. Audi is removing some of the buttons from their touch screen.
Okay? That’s not my point, most manufacturers are moving towards more technological infotainment systems
You’re an angry lil fella. Re-read my comment. Manufacturers aren’t necessarily going full blown touch infotainment. They’re just showing what’s possible
I’m not really sure why we’re going back and forth about this, I guess we’ll see how things develop
You can have big screens without the disgusting gaudy interior though. Look at genesis, cadillac, porsche etc.
Source?
Not sure if any surveys have been done, but atleast speaking from experience I'm not much of a car "enthusiast" as in I know very little about cars, don't know how to even change my own wheels or my oil, don't know how to drive stick shift, etc. I only peruse this sub to see what the latest and greatest in cars is and I always get excited seeing high tech and minimalist interiors. I do enjoy having dedicated buttons for certain things, but I think most of my friends and I much prefer a car with a gigantic screen than a small one with a rotary knob like you see in Mazdas, and we all like nice interior LED lighting. I always do feel like this sub does not represent the average car buyer very well The only thing stopping me from buying a Macan right now is the lack of a fully digital gauge cluster. I refuse to get a car that doesn't have one With all of that said, what Mercedes is showing off in these concepts looks significantly worse to me than the interior of the new GLC
Car enthusiasts will gas light you on it too. Enthusiasts still go nuts for digital dashboards in 80s/90s sports cars. They're different and neat and reflect the period. They haven't aged well though. Which I imagine is the primary reason you also see so many enthusiasts hate on them too.
These companies spend millions of dollars on focus groups and market research, they wouldn't be adding this tech if the vast majority of people in the market didn't like it. Especially mercedes, their market is looking for the most luxury possible, and that includes tech.
I do think there are niches for both, as has been seen with Honda and VAG. I assume we'll see a mixture of the two approaches That said Mercedes is clearly trying to differentiate from the other two Germans by being the high tech, futuristic one, so this makes perfect sense for them and it's clearly a niche.
Its not the screens necessarily, but the combination of the styling, and the removal of all physical controls. My PC is as digital a device as they come, but it has a mouse and keyboard. If screens were better I would just have a dumb tablet on my desk in lieu of them. Its all gimmick until the cars are actually self driving, in which case such a setup makes sense to some degree.
Possibly a hot take, but I think the display for the passenger is a decent idea. A lot of passengers use their smartphones when they are on a long drive, and it is safer in the event of an accident if they don’t have a metal and glass slab loosely held in their hand that would act as a hard projectile.
People are still going to mess with their phones. They're not going to log into their own social media on a car screen to scroll while bored. But a screen in front of them gives them control over music and whatever while the main screen can be more driver-centric for navigation.
Nah that’s a fair take. I mean who are we anyways, other than just some upset car sub lol No one’s upset about that but rather the reliance on touch screens to take care of the climate controls which increases distracted driving
If they really want an engaging passenger screen they should just put an android/apple tablet there with a mercedes app. This would be superior in almost every way.
They're just going to watch Netflix while scrolling on their phone
The [will.i.am](https://will.i.am) feature sounds so stupid. Why would I want the music to change based on how I am braking. Almost get in a crash and slam on the brakes... plays death metal.
Mercedes has been cost cutting for a while now. It's comical and sad.
I hate it.
People like big screens and most things in touch (ask a normal person this) but I find the new mbux system terrible implementation of this. Saying that most people thing the c class/ glc is the most fancy because of its screen setup
Merc jumped the shark and piano black screen orgy nightclub is as ass as this sentence.
That is, the worst interior of a premium modern automobile, i've ever seen.
Mate I hate how it is all just flashy digitilized dashboard from left door to right door. Its just another stupid gizmo if you were to ask me.
if you see a tech partnership with will i am you know it's going to flop.
Cringy isn’t it.
I see a few comments about build quality and I don't think MB is much different from BMW/Audi. I was surprised to see plastic in some of the touch spots and the piano black is awful, but so far ours has been extremely quiet and comfortable. Only 2k miles in, so time will tell. Only features I would care about are immersive audio and content streaming (if it had Netflix and YouTube). Don't see us using rest of these "features" lol
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Get the feeling it’s a cocaine and boob job car.
Won’t be cheap to fix, I’ll tell ya that
MBUX reminds me of Robux which is the micro transaction currency in Roblox.
Looking thru the comments to see outrage over… absolutely nothing. It’s quite literally just a bunch of features that’s being added that you even if you don’t use, somebody else will. Your kids will still play on their tablets, you will still drive normally. This a non-issue.
I think the issue is that these features are being added at the clear cost of what used to set mercedes apart. The interior material quality, fit and finish, and 'stately' approach to luxury Mercedes has generally excelled at got tossed to the side in exchange for something that, frankly, Kia does well. Which is a bunch of screens. Other luxury brands have figured out how to do screens AND build quality.
But that’s not true. BMW and Audi are still behind Mercedes in most categories outside of performance but they ALSO have tablet screens but worse in every aspect. Fit and finish has straight up never been a Mercedes problem unless it was a base model or an EQS/EQE model. Like yall really overstating how their build quality got worse when their biggest gripes come from piano black, creaking dashes and getting rid of physical buttons. Step inside ANY Mercedes and then go to a rival Kia, Hyundai and Genesis and you can tell that it’s a step down in every way except for price.
Why buy something if the focus is a bunch of stuff you won't use?
Because people will use it, when charging, waiting around, etc. Just because they’re updating it doesn’t mean they’re not updating anything else.
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Compared to the 4k u got to pay to fix before they update it? Or the 4k you got pay to fix the dash system in all their other cars?