On this episode of Head 2 Head
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 Hi there, and welcome to our luxury high-tech episode.
00:16 And this one's pretty simple,
00:17 despite the complexity of these two vehicles.
00:20 It all boils down to this.
00:22 You have the burning desire to spend 1/8 of a million dollars
00:25 on a cutting-edge four-door sedan.
00:27 Do you go with the new school or the school?
00:32 That's what we're gonna find out
00:33 on this episode of Head to Head.
00:36 (dramatic music)
00:38 Woo-hoo!
00:41 (laughing)
00:46 This is the manliest thing I've ever done in my life!
00:53 Few cars have been as disruptive as the Tesla Model S.
00:58 I can't even count the number of people
01:00 who at one point or another told me,
01:02 it's never gonna work, it's vaporware, it's a scam,
01:05 there's no business plan,
01:06 yet I'm standing next to Model S number 37,977.
01:10 But Mercedes-Benz knows a thing or two
01:15 about building impressive cars,
01:17 like this one, the new S-Class.
01:20 Depending on how you define it,
01:21 this is either the sixth or the 11th generation S-Class.
01:25 Either way, it goes all the way back to 1954,
01:28 and since that time, it has defined the genre.
01:32 And this one's already selling like hotcakes.
01:34 In fact, here in the US, if you add up the competition,
01:38 the Audi A8, the BMW 7 Series, and the Jaguar XJ,
01:41 this is selling more than all of them combined.
01:44 Thing is, the Model S is selling more than the S-Class.
01:49 One of these two is better than the other,
01:51 and it's not the one you think.
01:53 Neither car is a lightweight.
01:55 The Tesla, with its heavy 85 kilowatt hour battery,
01:59 clocks in at 4,633 pounds.
02:02 Not to be outdone, the Mercedes weighs 4,911 pounds,
02:07 just shy of two and a half tons.
02:09 That said, the big Benz can rip to 60 miles an hour
02:18 in 4.7 seconds before hurling down the quarter mile
02:22 in a very WRX-like 13.3 seconds at 107.4 miles per hour.
02:27 Braking is good.
02:30 It can stop from 60 miles an hour in 108 feet,
02:33 and it can run around our figure eight
02:35 in an athletic 25.2 seconds.
02:38 The Tesla is much more like a sports car.
02:46 It can knock off 60 miles an hour in 3.9 seconds
02:49 before running the quarter mile in 12.5 seconds
02:52 with a trap speed of 108.4 miles per hour.
02:56 You can see that the Mercedes is actually gaining on it
02:58 in terms of trap speeds.
02:59 Braking is excellent.
03:01 It can stop from 60 in 102 feet,
03:03 and it can run around our figure eight
03:05 in a very quick 24.8 seconds.
03:08 What's it like to drive the Model S?
03:13 Much better than it should be.
03:15 I forget what a great driving car it is.
03:18 What I really love doing is putting people
03:20 behind the wheel of this car
03:22 that have never driven a Model S before
03:24 and just say, "Floor it."
03:25 They're shocked.
03:26 They're shocked at just the instant torque,
03:28 how quick the car is.
03:29 It's seductive.
03:30 But here's the thing.
03:31 Range anxiety exists, and I'll tell you,
03:34 if it says you have 70 miles of indicated range left
03:38 and it's hot out and you gotta run the AC,
03:41 you have about 60 miles to go,
03:43 you're never gonna floor it.
03:44 You're never gonna get to experience the car.
03:46 So it limits you, and I just don't find that
03:49 to be that luxurious.
03:51 So now we are pulling into one of Tesla's superchargers.
03:59 These are freakishly cool.
04:00 The coolest part not being that you can get
04:03 so much range in such a short amount of time
04:06 from 440 volts of electricity moving at 90 amps,
04:10 but that they're free.
04:11 They're totally, totally free.
04:13 You just have to own a Tesla.
04:15 (upbeat music)
04:17 I am standing here with a dude named Brad
04:29 because I parked next to him at the supercharger,
04:32 and like all Model S owners,
04:34 he loves to talk about the car.
04:36 How long have you had your Model S?
04:36 - I've had it about a week now.
04:38 - One week? - Yep.
04:39 - And how do you like it?
04:40 - 400 miles in, I have nothing bad to say about it.
04:43 It's a dream come true.
04:44 - Do you ever think you'd buy a Californian car?
04:47 - Californian, let alone American.
04:48 I prefer to buy American.
04:50 I just always liked the cars
04:51 that came from other countries better.
04:53 - So Germany, Japan, England. - Yeah, BMWs, Lexus.
04:55 So really happy to be able to get behind a car
04:58 that was designed from the ground up really well,
05:01 and that just happens to be American.
05:02 - Tell you what, Brad, enjoy it.
05:04 I hope it lasts forever. - Thank you.
05:05 (upbeat music)
05:08 - Inside this car, the big party trick
05:11 is this insane screen.
05:14 You have to experience it to understand how wonderful it is,
05:18 but I mean, I have Google Maps.
05:20 I'm gonna have Google Maps.
05:21 This is better than an iPad.
05:23 It's clearer, it zooms better.
05:25 If there's a place that you previously charged the car,
05:27 it's on the map, boom, you hit it.
05:30 There you are, it takes you right there.
05:31 Another cool thing about the Model S
05:33 is it's as much a computer as it is a car.
05:35 So for instance, you can hit this button right here,
05:38 and I can pull up the release notes,
05:39 and I can find out what's new in version 5.9 of the Model S
05:43 and oh, it has Hill Start Assist.
05:45 And so if you have an old Tesla,
05:47 they just wirelessly update you,
05:49 and they can keep updating the Model S like that
05:51 for the life of the car.
05:53 It's brilliant.
05:54 The downside, you always, whenever you drive the car,
05:58 have a giant iPad right in your face.
06:01 It's just always on, it's always there.
06:03 So if you're a real tech person, cool.
06:06 If you're not, if you're kind of like a leather,
06:08 wood, and metal person, that's really big.
06:10 This Model S has like $34,000 in options,
06:16 and a couple of those options are like upgraded leather,
06:19 and the yacht floor, and things of that nature.
06:21 It's pretty nice in here.
06:23 Although it's not great.
06:26 I'm trying to think of like another car
06:28 that would cost $127,000,
06:30 that kind of have such a meh interior.
06:33 And again, it's not bad, it's just not special.
06:35 It almost feels like you're driving something
06:37 that's unfinished.
06:38 The electronics are great, they look cool,
06:40 and they work better than anything else,
06:42 but it's just sort of not, I don't know,
06:44 it's not screaming, "Look at me!"
06:47 like the exterior is.
06:48 The S-Class kind of is.
06:50 As far as looks go, S-Classes aren't supposed to be pretty.
06:59 They've never been pretty, that's not what they're about.
07:01 They're about solidity, they're about expressing
07:04 a comfortable wealthiness.
07:06 You look at it, you know it's an expensive car,
07:09 you know the owner's a successful person,
07:11 but they could have taken it a little further.
07:13 Now we're in the Mercedes-Benz S 550.
07:18 Right off the bat, there's a sense of raw,
07:22 unadulterated luxury.
07:24 This car rides softer, the seats are tremendous.
07:28 Much, much more comfortable.
07:30 I do hear a little bit of engine noise, not a ton,
07:32 but it is a twin-turbo V8, so I get some sound.
07:35 Although, you know, boy, it's just barely louder
07:38 than that Tesla.
07:39 I'm taking the S-Class through a car wash,
07:44 not because it's dirty, but because I wanna
07:47 show you something.
07:48 The interior actually looks real good during the daytime,
07:51 but it looks exceptional at night.
07:54 It's all LED, in fact, this car has over 500 LEDs,
07:56 the headlights are all LED.
07:58 It's just really cool, man, it just makes you feel special.
08:02 With the exception of Rolls-Royce,
08:05 this interior kinda smokes 'em all.
08:08 It's so elegant, I mean, you've got this,
08:10 what they call a string of pearls,
08:12 the vents across the dash.
08:13 You've got this two-spoke steering wheel.
08:15 The speaker grills on this thing,
08:17 laser-cut speaker grills, why not?
08:18 The seat controls, they actually modeled it
08:21 after an Ames chair, so instead of just being
08:23 buttons tacked on like every other car in the world,
08:26 this looks like kind of an archetypal classic chair.
08:29 It just puts so much thought and time into this interior.
08:34 The flip side of that is the exterior,
08:36 and this is a very kind of big, imposing,
08:40 imperious automobile.
08:42 Looks okay, doesn't blow me away.
08:44 Looks, well, it looks expensive, looks like a thing,
08:46 but doesn't light my hair on fire.
08:48 It's also not very efficient.
08:50 I was looking on my little 25-mile commute
08:52 to work this morning, I averaged something like
08:54 16 miles per gallon, which, you know,
08:56 compared to the Tesla, is pathetic.
08:59 I will say, they're gonna have a hybrid S-Class very soon,
09:02 and there'll also be a plug-in hybrid S-Class.
09:06 Plus there's a diesel, plus they're probably
09:07 gonna do an intelligent one, and we know
09:09 they're doing one that drives itself.
09:11 Speaking of driving yourself, okay, ready?
09:13 Look at that, it's driving!
09:16 I'm not!
09:17 So I've turned on my DISTRONIC+ DTR+ steering,
09:23 and the car is actually using stereo cameras
09:25 mounted right above the rear-view mirror to drive itself!
09:29 It's keeping itself in the lanes,
09:30 and it's just looking at the car in front of me.
09:33 It'll put on the brakes if we come to a red light.
09:35 Car actually can, in a dumb way, drive itself.
09:38 You can't say, "Go to this address,"
09:40 but it'll just follow the traffic in front of it.
09:42 It's like a partially self-driving car.
09:45 That's pretty cool.
09:47 (upbeat music)
09:54 We've reached the point in the video
09:56 where I have to choose a winner,
09:57 and it's very difficult because both cars are incredible.
10:00 I mean, that's why we matched 'em up.
10:03 The Tesla, well, as we said, it's faster
10:06 than it needs to be, it drives better than it needs to.
10:08 It's incredible that you can't even put gasoline
10:11 into it if you wanted to, yet it has the performance
10:13 of like a Porsche 911.
10:15 But then you have the Mercedes-Benz.
10:18 They finally caught up, and there's a quality,
10:20 there's a grandeur to it that you have to experience.
10:24 With that in mind, the winner of this head-to-head
10:26 is the Mercedes-Benz S550.
10:29 This Tesla, it's fabulous, but it's only 90% there.
10:34 The S-Class, on the other hand, 100%.
10:37 When the S-Class finally clicked in my mind,
10:42 like, "Wow, this is a totally special car,"
10:45 was Angus McKenzie was actually driving,
10:47 I was sitting in the back seat at night,
10:49 and just to see this thing lit up at night,
10:52 it was incredible, I'd never been in a car
10:53 that looked like that, it was like being
10:55 in a nightclub or something.
10:57 Is it weird that I like going through car washes?