Mercedes E-Class launches with advanced tech on board
The 2016 Mercedes E-Class
The new Mercedes E-Class certainly tries to live up to the billing as the brand’s most intelligent executive saloon.
Launched in Singapore on Thursday (28 July), its exterior design is in the vein of the C-Class Coupe that launched in May, with origami creases running down its sides and a reworked front end.
The vehicle’s interior features swooping lines and creases with technological touches. There are touch controls on the steering wheel, pairing options for your Apple or Android smartphone with a wireless charging station for compatible models.
For those who enjoy personalising their cars without hassle, there are 64 interior lighting colours to choose from.
The elegant interior hides advanced technological touches.
However, it is under the skin where the E-Class really shows its technological advances, with safety being top of the list of priorities.
The Active Brake Assist comes as a standard feature and warns the driver if the car senses an upcoming collision; it can even autonomously brake the car to avoid hitting another vehicle. Attention Assist warns drivers if the car senses that they are becoming drowsy or inattentive.
The Intelligent Drive and Intelligent Protect Systems
The optional Driving Assistance package includes the Drive Pilot, which is meant to make driving easier and more autonomous. It will keep the car in its lane, and at a safe distance from the vehicle ahead of it, while keeping an eye on blind spots – thanks to the Active Blind Spot Assist – and even read speed limit signs to keep the car travelling within the law.
The car’s Active Brake Assist gets help from the optional cross-traffic function, which looks ahead to junctions and will hit stop the car to prevent collisions with traffic crossing the road.
All of this is in addition to more driver aids such as the Remote Parking Pilot that will park the car for you, even if you are not actually sitting in it.
The LED headlights are even programmed to watch the road ahead and use the 84 LEDs to light the scene around oncoming cars to avoid dazzling them.
The E-Class also includes what Mercedes calls “Car-to-X Communication”. This is a form of mobile phone-supported car-to-car networking that exchanges information with other similarly equipped cars on the road to let the driver now about matters such as breakdowns or traffic jams.
All this technology is likely to be welcomed by drivers and is intended by Mercedes to be the next step on the path to fully autonomous cars.
The E-Class is on sale at the following prices, inclusive of Certificate of Entitlement (COE) costs. Prices state are valid until 3 August:
E 200 AVANTGARDE – S$264,888
E 200 EXCLUSIVE – S$272,888
E 200 AMG LINE – S$282,888