2021 Mercedes S-Class 5 cool features on the brand new flagship Benz!
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00:00G'day, I'm Paul. The all-new Mercedes-Benz S-Class has just lobbed. Now, the S-Class
00:04is one of those cars that always debuts new features in the car world, so today I wanted
00:10to take you through five of the coolest features in the new S-Class and what we can expect
00:15in future Mercedes-Benz models down the track.
00:18Before we do that, I'm going to give you a quick overview of the new S-Class. Now, it
00:22starts off with W223, that's the codename for the short wheelbase. The long wheelbase
00:27is V223. It's going to launch with two petrol and three diesel engines, all of them are
00:33three-litre six-cylinder engines, and they're all mated to a nine-speed automatic transmission
00:39with 48-volt mild hybrid technology. Only one of the diesels is rear-wheel drive, the
00:44rest are all-wheel drive. There is a V8 coming along with a plug-in hybrid that's expected
00:49to have 100 kilometres of driving range, and then in addition to that, down the track I
00:54reckon we'll see some beastly AMG models because that is what the S-Class has always
00:59been about.
01:00Four-wheel drive steering is on offer and that improves your dynamic driving but also
01:04reduces the turning circle by 1.9 metres. Stuff like this is important because you have
01:09to consider the size of the S-Class, especially with long wheelbase. They're often picking
01:13people up, having to do tight U-turns. Four-wheel steering will be completely invaluable to
01:17people who need tight parking ability. In addition to that, boot space has increased
01:22to 550 litres, which is an increase of around 10%, and it has the equal lowest coefficient
01:29of drag of any car on the market at 0.22.
01:33Now if you do want a full breakdown of the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, you can click on
01:37the link up here which will take you to the Car Expert website where you can get all of
01:40the details, but let's get cracking with five of the coolest features on the new S-Class.
01:46Let's start with digital lights. This takes the technology of the headlight even further.
01:50We've seen matrix LED, we've seen laser headlights, but the digital light is brand new to cars
01:55and is debuted here in the S-Class. Now if you do want to see a comparison we shot between
02:00halogen LED, matrix LED and laser headlights, you can use the link above there to take you
02:06through and have a look at that. But what is a digital light? Well, it takes the matrix
02:10LED light even further. The S-Class uses as standard an 84 LED module setup in the headlights,
02:16but the digital light comprises of three powerful LEDs with, get this, 1.3 million
02:23micro mirrors inside them. What does all that mean? Well, it means you have an effective
02:27resolution of 2.6 million pixels. Now to put that into context and into something that's
02:33going to make sense, this right here, it is a graphics calculator. You may have used this
02:38in high school. This has an effective resolution of about 6,000 pixels. High definition television,
02:45that has about 2 million pixels. So the headlight in this car that's very compact and put into
02:50that small cross-section within the actual headlight has over 2 million pixels available.
02:56What does all that allow you to do? Well, this is where it gets interesting because
02:59it has a digital processor that's driven by a graphics card and it has a constant video
03:04stream that comes through to the headlights. When the car approaches things like a road
03:08work zone, it allows it to project images out onto the road. You can project things
03:13like an excavator if you're in a road work zone. If you're in a narrow section of road,
03:17it'll project lines onto the road. And if there is a pedestrian up ahead that you don't
03:21see, it will start projecting little dots onto the road so it lights up the pedestrian.
03:26I mean, this type of stuff right here really takes the headlight game further because you
03:30only have 84 pixels in a standard matrix LED headlight that's fitted to the car. So I don't
03:36know how useful this will be, whether it's just a lighting flex here from Mercedes-Benz,
03:40but I think it's really cool that they are pioneering headlights with this technology.
03:45Moving on to safety, this is something that Mercedes-Benz, I guess, prides themselves
03:49in and often the S-Class is the first car to debut safety features that then filter
03:53down into cheaper Mercedes-Benz variants. Okay, so what about the overall structure?
03:59It's 60 kilograms lighter and that's due to the overall use of aluminium, or aluminum
04:05if you're American. There's about 50% of aluminium used throughout the structure and that is
04:09now strong enough to withstand impacts and also helps make the car lighter in general.
04:15But there's something inside the car that I need to share with you guys. It is a front
04:18airbag. I know you're thinking, wow, front airbags, big deal. But it's a front airbag
04:22for the second row. So it fires from the back of the front seats and it creates a tubular
04:29structure. Now the tubular structure is filled with compressed gas that fires from a cylinder
04:34within the seats and it fills it with 16 litres of that gas so that it inflates quickly. And
04:40then inside the tubular structure, to give you an idea of the size of it, there's 70
04:43litres of volume. And this can fill around other parts. So if you do have a baby seat
04:49or some other object in the second row, this will fill and then encase it with that tubular
04:54structure. Now it is a really hard thing to get your head around, but it makes perfect
04:58sense when you think about it. If you have body parts moving around or someone that perhaps
05:02isn't wearing a seatbelt properly, it gives them something to hit before they hit the
05:07seat in front of them. So any chance you get to increase the padding and reduce the amount
05:12of velocity a person has as they fly around the cabin, the better. Now where does all
05:16this come about? Well, it's ESF. It's the Experimental Safety Vehicle. Mercedes-Benz
05:22has generations of these cars from the early seventies that demonstrate safety features
05:27the company is testing. And last year I was in Stuttgart where they were showing some
05:31of this technology and they showed us this airbag that inflates from a seat. And I thought
05:35this looks really cool. And in fact, while we were there, just a fun side story, I had
05:39the chance to check out ESF 13, which was the 13th car that they built with some of
05:44this innovative safety tech. Now it was built to withstand an impact from the rear of 80
05:49kilometres an hour and a side impact of 25 kilometres an hour. Now the only problem with
05:53being able to resist that kind of damage is that it increased weight in this car by 700
05:59kilograms. It made the car a metre longer than it needed to be. It also meant most of
06:04the interior was covered in padding as well, so that if a person did get thrown around,
06:09they were just going to impact a soft surface. So some of these cars are a little bit unrealistic
06:13in terms of what they do, but they forced the engineers to test their ability to come
06:17up with new technology. And that extends to a feature called Pre-Safe. Now this was debuted
06:22in the E-Class, but they have now fitted it to the S-Class. It's a function that allows
06:26the side bolster in the seat to rapidly fire in the event of a side impact. In addition
06:32to that, the car is able to raise the side by 8 centimetres rapidly with an impending
06:38side impact. What that allows the car to do is distribute some of the forces in that impact
06:42to lower parts of the car that will better absorb crash forces instead of the thinner
06:47parts of the centre door. And what about that side bolster? So this is going to get a little
06:52bit technical, but just bear with me for a second. So the formula for the average force
06:56is average force times distance equals half mass times velocity squared. So if the mass
07:02and the velocity are consistent, which we know they will be, if you've got a car coming
07:05towards you, it weighs a certain amount, it moves at a certain velocity. If we were to
07:09change the distance though, you increase the distance, it reduces the amount of force that
07:14you feel on your body when that impact happens. So by firing the bolster in the seat, you're
07:19moving the human away from the force and it means that you will feel less of that. So
07:25every centimetre counts when it comes to impacts in cars. And I love the fact that
07:29they are thinking about just even the most minor ways of getting a human better protected
07:35in the event of a side impact. Okay, let's have a look at the interior of the car. We'll
07:38start off with the sound system. The optional Burmester sound system has 31 speakers that
07:44create 4D sound. What is 4D sound? Well, that is getting an extra dimension in the sound
07:51sphere. And in this case, it is the dimension of feel. You are going to feel when you get
07:56punches of bass, when you get those high frequency tweets and they use what they call exciters.
08:03They sit in the headrests of these seats and they're able to give you that sensation of
08:07your body shaking a bit. So if you do get a big bit of bass, you feel it through the
08:11body and that makes your head think that it's more powerful than it is. So this is one of
08:15these features that they're adding to these cars to give you that immersive sound experience
08:19inside the car. So I'm keen to see what that sounds like. 31 speakers is insane. I can't
08:23think of any other car that has such a high speaker count. It's almost like they're just
08:27trying to create a record here with the most amount of speakers they can. And I'm keen
08:31to see whether that 4D experience actually works. Next up is LED lighting. Often we talk
08:35about the amount of ambient LED lights you get in a cabin that allow you to make it all
08:40colourful and give it that dynamic atmosphere. Well, they have fitted 250 LEDs to the interior
08:47of the S-Class. Now here's something interesting. They're spaced 1.6 centimetres apart and they're
08:52projected through fibre optics, which make them look like they're one continuous module
08:57and gives you that dynamic appearance. And the advantage of this technology is kind of
09:02on the safety front as well. Yes, you can customise them so they make the interior look
09:06and feel nice, but in terms of safety, if you go to open the door and there's a car
09:09coming or there's a cyclist or someone running, they're able to flash very quickly, get your
09:14attention fast as well so that you can stop opening the door and you're not going to hit
09:18it into an unsuspecting cyclist or person running past your car. Now the final cool
09:23feature in the new S-Class is MBUX 2. It is the second generation of Mercedes-Benz user
09:30experience. That is, I guess, the Mercedes-Benz terminology for their infotainment system.
09:35This will look completely different to any other Mercedes-Benz product because it is.
09:39It's a new screen, a 12.8 inch screen. I don't have the exact dimensions and it kind of looks
09:43like a portrait screen to start with, but it's quite rectangular in shape. It looks
09:47pretty impressive there inside the S-Class cabin, or does it? Let me know in the comments
09:51below whether you think it's overkill or do you think this will suit the S-Class over time.
09:55Now it's interesting because they've really beefed up the processing power here. So it
10:00has 50% increase in processing power. It's got memory bandwidth of just over 40,000 megabytes
10:08a second. And it means that it's smarter as well. It can process up to 30 languages and it's able
10:14to use the cloud to help decipher what you're saying. So if you have a strong accent or perhaps
10:18you're speaking in a language that they haven't fully developed, it actually processes it through
10:22the Mercedes-Benz cloud. And then that means it can customize the responses to use. It can also
10:27pick up new words and phrases. So if there's a new phrase or cool word, like that's rad,
10:32that could reappear. Or one that I heard the other day, I had a mirror of a week. I don't
10:38know, it's short for nightmare. So if these things become trendy and you come into your S-Class and say,
10:43look, I've had a mirror of a day, please turn up the temperature inside the cabin. Mercedes-Benz
10:48user experience will know exactly what you're talking about, even if nobody else does. Then
10:53you've also got cool features like an interior assistant. Now this uses an overhead camera to
10:58watch you while you're driving and while you're sitting inside the car. And an example of where
11:02this is handy, if you look over your shoulder to look out the back window, it's able to lower the
11:07sun blind because it assumes that you want to see what's going on. If you want to adjust your
11:11mirror, all you do is look at the wing mirror you want to adjust and it will automatically select it
11:15so you can make that adjustment immediately without needing to do anything manually. So I guess it is
11:20a bit overkill and I'm hoping it doesn't go down the path of things like gesture control in BMW.
11:24I find that technology absolutely useless. I get the feeling that this might be in the same case,
11:29but you never know, it might find a use for some people. All of this is controlled through a new
11:3412.8-inch screen that uses OLED technology. So OLED is different to standard LED because it
11:40doesn't require backlighting and what they've done is they've put multiple layers of these
11:43screens on top of each other to create a 3D look and feel and they've also integrated haptic
11:49feedback. So as you push onto the screen you get a little click on your finger and they've also
11:54condensed all the buttons so you don't have a litany of buttons in the center there. It's all
11:57kind of integrated into the screen. Also as part of MBUX 2 is over-the-air updates. Now Mercedes-Benz
12:03has made a big song and dance about these, but a lot of manufacturers have been doing this for a
12:07while, namely Tesla. You get new features overnight and Mercedes-Benz is allowing you to update
12:11things in the car as time goes on. You can also add features through the store as well. If there's
12:15anything you want to add to your car that Mercedes-Benz has developed, you'll be able to
12:19download it through the store and pay where required. So that has been a quick look at the
12:24all-new Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Remember that we have a stack more detail at the Car Expert
12:29website. You can click on the link up there to be taken to our news article. Oh, by the way, there's
12:33a new key for the S-Class as well. This is what it looks like. I don't mind it. It looks very sharp
12:38and swish. So very big fan of that. Now let me know what you think in the comments below about
12:43the all-new Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Do you think there's enough world-first technology in this car
12:49or have they dropped the ball a little bit? Let me know in the comments section below. Make sure
12:52you check out the rest of our channel and some of the other cool stuff we have there. And if you
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