Mercedes-Benz E-Class interior tech revealed

It's out with the stodgy and in with the swoopy as Mercedes-Benz's next-generation E-Class aims to take Audi's mantle as the premium world's interior style king.

Gone are the jaunty, angular vents and clacky switchgear and in their place will be a beautifully measured blend of horizontal surfaces, clear dials, all-new electronics and awesome sound.

It inherits the two-screen dash layout combination from the S-Class, but the technology is more mature than when the big limousine delivered it. The E-Class still uses two 12.3-inch display screens, but places them behind one single, long sheet of protective glass, then shrouds it all with a single, clean visor. The screen directly in front of the driver contains the traditional instrument cluster, which can be rearranged from three pre-selected layouts, and both screens run to 1920 x 720 pixels.

The E-Class will also introduce Blackberry-style touch scrollers on the steering wheel's horizontal spokes to give drivers a way to control any of the car's systems without taking their hands off the steering wheel. Those systems have all been overhauled, with Benz redefining the user interface of its multi-media systems, despite years of telling us their units were more intuitive than anything from its rivals.

There is redundancy built into all of it, with the driver able to manage the multi-media menus from the new steering-wheel scrollers, which have adjustable sensitivity, or the traditional wheel controller in the centre console. There will also be an optional touchpad so passengers can simply write down their requests or inputs, then the car will read them back so the driver can confirm their accuracy.

Benz revised its clunky current system with an all-new menu board and "tree", where most functions can be reached in just two clicks.

Sadly, the latest interior wizardry won't be for every E-Class customer. With its domestic taxi fleets in mind, the base E-Class will still come with two tube-style round dials and a 17.8-inch colour multimedia display.

All E-Classes will use four central round vents, taken from the S-Class, with two dash-flanking vents to the sides.

But the technology is only one part of where the Benz has taken a leap forward. Just like it did with the C-Class, the E-Class's interior design looks to have moved two generations forward instead of one, with style and precision now looking to be on an even footing with technology and efficiency.

"With the interior of the new E-Class, we are giving a new interpretation to the concept of contemporary luxury," Mercedes-Benz's head of interior design, Hartmut Sinkwitz said.

"We have designed a spacious and intelligent interior. True to Mercedes-Benz's design philosophy of sensual purity, it employs technical innovation and high-grade equipment to create an exceptionally emotive experience for the driver and front passenger."

"Sensual" and "emotive" were never words bandied about when Mercedes-Benz discussed its current E-Class, but the new one, due to be unveiled in Detroit in January and with first drives from late March, is a long way removed from the outgoing car.

"Alongside a workplace and private environment, it also becomes a 'third place' – a living area in which passengers are able to enjoy contemporary luxury," Sinkwitz insisted.

Talk like this is relatively new from Mercedes-Benz, and it all began with the current C-Class.

The E-Class's new interior is light years removed from the old one in philosophy. While the technical gristle is hinted at by the unmissable two-screens-joined-as-one, the bigger difference is in the style and elegance of a design that is now seamless at the door joins, rather than clumsy.

Tired of carbon fibre (and feeling the material's sporting history didn't really fit with the E-Class ethos), Benz has invented a new material of woven aluminium fibres, which it uses to trim the horizontal piece below the screens and around into the doors. Of course, this can also be trimmed in a variety of timbers or piano black plastic.

"We are constantly developing new ways to divide the essential interior elements and to give them exciting new configurations," Mercedes-Benz interior designer Jan Kaul suggested.

"The trim piece on the dashboard is shaped like a double-S and flows elegantly into the doors. A new interpretation of this theme comes from the interaction with the top of the dashboard, which seems to float above the trim piece like a solitary body."

While he wouldn't be drawn on why Benz was embarking down the road of sensuality and emotion, Kaul did admit "we want occupants to fall in love with the car on seeing the outstanding quality and finish" and insisted the E-Class would deliver a "coming together of high-tech and traditional craftsmanship".

One of the flashier ways the car will make you notice its interior is that its interior LED background lighting can be dialed up to deliver any of 64 background colours for areas like the central display, the footwells, the centre console, the overhead console, the door pockets and even the hand recesses.

But there are other ways, too. The door armrests are heated, as is the centre console armrest and the steering wheel, much less the seat. There is a top-end Burmester audio system with 3D sound and 1450W of power (and its 25-litre bass box gets its own 400W amplifier).

There are new LED headlights, too, and the option of matrix LED headlights (which Benz obviously won't call Matrix, but prefers Multibeam LED) with 84 LEDs per light, each of which can be switched off individually to black out other traffic so the car can stay on high beam without dazzling anybody else.

"It is one of our achievements that the Mercedes-Benz brand is seen as a design brand today," Kaul claimed.

"Our new exterior and interior design language is one of the major factors contributing to our current success. We have developed a new philosophy that brings polar opposites together in a wonderfully taut interaction of emotion and intelligence.

"When it comes to emotion, we want our clients to fall in love with our product. When it comes to intelligence, we develop new solutions that our clients haven't seen before."

Some of those solutions are design while others are driven by engineering, so Mercedes-Benz founded two new internal departments: one dubbed Digital Graphic and Corporate Design, the other simply called User Interaction (guess which one is filled with engineers?).