This new S class is for a new buyer. A younger buyer. Just like the Ls500. Looks to me like they lowered the roofline where the front is just like the LS500. This new S class will be big in China

 

Boring exterior and I’m not crazy about the inside either.

 

Materials look nice. As do the doors, seats, and center arm rest area.. but the design of the infotainment, air vents, digital cluster are horrendous. This is Mercedes's flagship and this is their best effort?? Genesis has certainly been doing a great job luring away design talent from the Europeans.

 

around here S class vs 7 is probably 70/30. had to try very hard to find any newer MY a8, and i can count the number of ls500 i have seen with one hand

 

i don't think it will be an issue because of mbux and voice commands. if you can talk you can control the features easily.

 

Yes, because memorizing a bunch of voice commands is sooo much better than a physical button, right?

 

Every car I've driven with voice commands, they've been terrible. Every review I've ever seen of voice commands in a car (regardless of brand), has been terrible.

And I'm an early 40s geek who loves tech and has spent his entire career in IT. That doesn't bode well for the typically-much-older S-class customers.

 

the voice recognition in my model 3 has been impressively good. in fact i almost never type. i just say where i want to go and it figures out. our gle350 mbux is also pretty good, though i say maybe 70% accuracy. i also tried radio and such on the model 3, also pretty impressed

our 2016 gl550 was trash, the system was stupid at best. the system in our 2016 gs350 wasn't impressive either. so i guess voice recognition might have took a leap in the past 2-3 years? and with all the smart devices these (Siri, Alexa, etc...) i think these systems will continue to improve drastically in the next couple of years

 

Well, the vent area sure is nicer on the outgoing one.

Cars suck now. You’re stuck with hybrid assist in either of these new ones, no thanks.

Different company but the new or newer Ram with mild hybrid assist was finniky and delivered 14MPG over a long term test. That’s almost LX bad mileage.

 

Like I've said before, you would never even know the "hyrbid assist" was there if someone didn't tell you. Technology marches ever forward.

 

Sure, but I’d still pass if I had a choice in my new $120k S-Class.

My issue is the unnecessary complexity. The actual assist, fine I guess. A TT MB V8 is a monster to begin with and the six cylinder is pretty much enough too.

 

The last thing you need to worry about in that car is the 48V electrical system adding to complexity LOL. That vehicle is nothing but complexity. People lease these for 3 years and give them back, you would have to be insane to buy one of these and keep it.

As I said before, it has a lot to do with the electrical system. You need the 48v system to run all of those electronics.

This system is the future, very shortly all new cars will have a 48v "mild hybrid" system.

 

LOL yeah that crossed my mind too after my post. S-Class might as well be a rolling UFO.

Not to go OT but the Ram I mentioned for example was heavily, heavily criticized with the hybrid assist. All the Ram needs is the regular 5.7 Hemi, give me a break Chrysler.

 

I red the review of the Ram. I think you're overstating it. And this technology will get better and better.

 

Car and Driver 40k mile test:

For the sake of science, we spec'd the pricier engine, and we have to say, even at today's discounted premium, we wouldn't spend our own money on the electrically assisted Hemi. We averaged an underwhelming 14 mpg, a number that we matched during two weeks in a Ram without eTorque. (Our long-termer's fuel economy rises to 15 mpg if we omit our towing.) More disappointing than its performance, the 48-volt system proved just finicky enough for us to lose faith in it. The vast majority of the time, eTorque works exactly as intended, smoothing engine restarts and increasing the amount of time the V-8 is shut down in traffic. But the system periodically stumbled when refiring, and on a handful of occasions, it stalled the engine right as we were expecting the truck to accelerate. This rough behavior was sometimes accompanied by a warning light and an error message indicating that the system wasn't charging properly. And when an editor woke to find the truck's electrical system dead one morning, we couldn't shake the feeling that a leaky 48-volt system was the culprit. We never got an answer, as the Ram recovered with a jump-start and the dealer never identified the cause of the drained battery, the rough restarts, or the intermittent stalling.

Pass. At least on a FCA product.