CES 2018: Mercedes debuts new infotainment

Mercedes-Benz has revealed its new infotainment system at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, promising a more personalised system driven by artificial intelligence and deep learning.

Dubbed the Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX), the new multimedia platform will not debut in the flagship S-Class limousine or this year’s new G-Class off-roader.

Instead, Mercedes-Benz chief Ola Källenius said the company had elected to launch the new technology in the upcoming fourth-generation A-Class as will appeal to younger drivers.

“The new-generation A-Class is the one that we have the youngest customer group, so we thought — especially for the user experience like this, that almost has gaming like features in terms of its performance and graphics — that would be a good place to showcase the technology,” he told motoring.com.au at the CES.

Mercedes-Benz says that MBUX is an intelligent system that learns driver habits to create the ultimate mobile device. A driver who chooses to play upbeat music on their drive to work will be presented with a similar playlist once the vehicle has learned their preferences.

Make a phone call to the same person at the same time of day and the car will suggest the option to make the call via the large touch-screen.

Until now, Mercedes-Benz has not offered touch-screen functionality on its infotainment screens, so customers have needed to use either its joystick, steering wheel or voice control to manage inputs.

With MBUX, drivers can now also use a larger touchpad and the large colour screen is now touch-enabled.

Voice control has also been enhanced to recognise 23 languages, with a more intuitive recognition system that reduces the number of steps it takes to undertake a function.

Just like Google Home or Amazon Alexa, both of which are integrated with MBUX, a driver simply says ‘hey Mercedes’ to give the car an instruction.

For example, saying ‘Hey Mercedes, I’m cold’ will result in the vehicle turning up the temperature inside the cabin.

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The Mercedes-Benz UX design team focussed on intuitive use and clean design to maximise function and minimise distraction for drivers.

The team which is based in both Stuttgart and Silicon Valley, used 3D design in both conceptualising the system and presenting information to customers, with the same graphics processors used in gaming consoles used to generate images.

In addition to the options screen offering the ability to swipe left and right for different content, the driver can also swipe up and down to move through favourites and themes.

Moving into the third dimension, by selecting an option, the user can select to go deeper into the menu, and is presented with a 3D graphical model of the vehicle to illustrate relevant information from the system.

in order that the system doesn’t become obsolete too quickly, Mercedes-Benz is employing some of the most advanced computer technology in its new infotainment suite including the NVIDIA Parker 128-chip and a six-core CPU.

Further, MBUX can be updated over the air for significant upgrades while data pushes from the cloud occur in real time.

A number of key data sources will be available at launch. Yelp and TripAdvisor will have feeds into the search function of MBUX while Here mapping technology will power the 3D mapping used in the onboard navigation.

While some connected technologies aren’t always made available to Australian drivers, Källenius said that as Australia is a strong market for Mercedes-Benz vehicles, the company was committed to making as much functionality as possible available Down Under.

“It is our intent that it will work in all markets, but sometimes some aspects come a little bit later. Australia is such an important market to us, so don’t worry.” he said.

More information on the specific functionality of the MBUX system is expected at next month’s A-Class launch in Amsterdam.

Mercedes-Benz has confirmed there will be four different levels of the MBUX system, including a basic version for entry-level models, and customers will be able to add up to three additional layers depending on preference.

In addition to MBUX, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto functionality will also be available on the A-Class, however, Mercedes-Benz believes users will prefer its own in-house system which it says will deliver a more advanced experience for the driver.

“We believe that a fully integrated experience, where every aspect of the car is done in one holistic way, that is the best experience,” said Källenius.