benz

LAS VEGAS--Sporting booths and displays suitable for a full-fledged car show, major automakers showed off their varying connected car strategies at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.

But the automaker displays at CES only held a smattering of cars, the space primarily being taken up by standalone dashboards and kiosks showing in-car navigation, audio, phone, and app screens. I never doubted the benefits of data feeds in cars, as integrating Google search with a navigation system is far better than relying on some static, outdated points-of-interest database.

Knowing the glacial pace of automotive development, what surprised me was how quickly automakers … Read more

LAS VEGAS--As its luxury competitors showed off new connected-car features and integrated apps, Mercedes-Benz lagged, until now.

At CES 2012 Mercedes-Benz revealed a full-featured new telematics system, Mbrace2, which gives drivers access to a number of useful and popular apps in the dashboard. This new system will first see production in the updated 2013 SL-Class, then roll out to other 2013 models.

Mercedes-Benz enhanced its traditional onscreen interface with a carousel menu structure, and one of those carousel items leads to the apps. These include Facebook, Yelp, a news reader, Morningstar Finance, Google search, Google Street View, and Panoramio. Most … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Looks like Siri was just the beginning.

Okay, even Siri wasn't the beginning. The ability to do voice-command isn't particularly new, but the marquee feature for Apple's iPhone 4S has gotten the masses to recognize and appreciate its benefits. For the first time, voice-command was a feature people talked about and coveted.

At CES, there were better implementations and voice-commands popping up on different devices. Big-name companies got into the mix. Dieter Zetsche, head of Mercedes Benz, said voice would play a major role in its cars, calling them a driver's "digital companion." … Read more

Green Car Journal announced five finalists for the publication's annual Green Car Vision Award. The award recognizes innovations in fuel efficiency, low emissions, alternative fuels, or electric power.

To be considered for the Green Car Vision Award, vehicles must be in demonstration on public highways today or nearing commercialization but not yet widely available to consumers, Green Car Journal said in a press release.

The five finalists include the BMW i3, the Cadillac ELR, the Ford's C-MAX Energi, the Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell, and the Tesla Model S.

The 2012 Green Car Vision Award winner will be announced at … Read more

They said it, not me.

"Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism," Mercedes-Benz Chairman of the Board of Management Dieter Zetsche said onstage at CES today, speaking about Mercedes' new CarTogether initiative. "But if that's the case, viva la revolucion!"

To be sure, a luxury-car maker like Mercedes is not actually promoting communism. But during his CES talk, Zetsche pushed hard on a vision that the company has for a greener future that allows drivers to reduce emissions by using connected and social technology to easily find compatible passengers to share rides with. … Read more

"Viva la revolucion!"

Mercedes-Benz may not seem like the kind of company that would promote the social use of its vehicles, but at CES today, it was doing just that.

During the company's CES press conference, Daimler's chairman of the board of management, Dieter Zetsche, laid out a vision for car sharing that may be intimately tied to Mercedes cars in the future.

That's because future Mercedes cars will have a telematics app called CarTogether that can help drivers find people with whom to share rides. This is not quite the same thing, of course, … Read more

Mercedes-Benz is toying with augmented reality to give car buyers a closer look at its products and accessories.

Using downloadable iOS and Android augmented-reality apps for Fitnessbike and the C-class MercedesSport, shoppers can take a virtual walkaround of the products. With the C-class app, you can even outfit the AR sedan with a few accessories, such as a spoiler. But the renderings still have a ways to go to be more useful than a parlor trick.

The apps are intended for German consumers, but Mercedes-Benz has links to the downloads on its Web site, giving a U.S. audience a … Read more

We made it about halfway back from Los Angeles before the fuel light came on.

It was CNET's annual road trip to the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show, and the 2012 Mercedes-Benz ML350 Bluetec we had chosen for the drive had already traveled the 380 miles between San Francisco and Los Angeles once. Short of it getting much better fuel economy in real world driving than the EPA estimates, we knew it wouldn't make it all the way back.

But it was still worth the attempt.

On our freeway run, 70-ish mph up the middle of California on … Read more

Arthur C. Clarke wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," which is what Mercedes-Benz must be thinking with some of the new features in its 2013 SL550.

Its Magic Sky Control consists of a panel in its retractable hard top that goes from dark to transparent at the touch of a button. That does sound very advanced. Not quite as magical is Magic Vision Control, a system that dispenses wiper fluid from openings on the wiper blade, rather than spraying haphazardly over the windshield from two jets on the hood.

Although not called out as magical by Mercedes-Benz, the new SL550 includes other very advanced features. It will come with an automatic parallel parking system and a sensor under the rear that opens the trunk when someone waves a foot across it. Both of these technologies were recently introduced by Ford, stealing some of Mercedes-Benz's thunder. … Read more