I don't care if the new XJ or S class have touchscreens everywhere. That's table stakes now.

I like quality interior design, and that new S class is garbage design.

 

Tech and design need not be mutually exclusive. A big iPad jutting out of the center console isn’t good design. You can have a big touchscreen and all the tech in the world, just don’t make it look like an afterthought.

I agree Tesla is significantly ahead in tech. I for one am very interested in owning a Tesla power train and am impressed with their overall accomplishments. Their interiors, however, are a bit too minimalist IMHO. Though if no one matches their tech in the next few years, I will probably buy a Tesla and deal with the inferior cabin in order to have a superior vehicle overall.

 

I agree, 100%.

 

Given the steep depreciation curve of these luxury land yachts, in a couple years young people under 30 will be able to afford them. Even so, most opinions I've gathered from Benz forums on the new W223 S-Class have been UNFAVORABLE. Though I'm not a MB fan I really like the current W222 interior!

 

Why has Tesla not offered a premium interior? When you are use to Burlwood and high end leather it is tough to sit in most vehicles and feel the same as I do in my Jags. A high end interior would help sales with the older crowd who actually have the money to purchase one.

 

I get to watch the younger crowd every workday with their BMWs. Most of them don't even know how to appreciate a high end interior. All they care about are big screens with too much information on them to pay attention while you are driving and a lot of buttons to push. I had one carrying on about the big screen in the X7 SUV I was driving him around in and could care less about the bubbled dash with the crappy stiches on the dash. The leather in the average BMW is junk. It is like sitting on cardboard. It does no good to make a high end interior like the XJ if the crowd you are selling to is to dumb to appreciate it.

 

I would gladly buy a P100D with ludicrous (or whatever hyperbolic expression) mode if they made the interior like my XJ. I try my best to not act underwhelmed each time a friend/ relative shows me their Tesla’s interior. But I’m definitely jealous of their 0-60 acceleration times and relatively free fuel (I have more solar panels than I can use).

Hopefully the all-electric XJ doesn’t pale in comparison performance-wise. I’m afraid they’ll use the ipace motors/batteries in the new XJ. That system is already obsolete. They should take up Tesla’s offer to use batteries/power train. That would be perfect IMO.

 

Another thing about these screens in cars that young people won't understand until they get here is that over about 50 years old, you can't read the screens anyway, least not while you're driving. As you approach a certain age, you lose the ability to focus from far to near. You'll need these things called "reading glasses" to be able to change even a setting as simple as the radio station or even to tell how fast you are going. It was not a problem with older cars because just like an analog clock, once you were familiar with your car, you knew where the needle on the speedo was pointing whether you could read the numbers or not. Switches were always in the same place and very tactile so you could feel them engage. Engineers actually used to design cars with the idea that the driver should be able to control everything without ever taking his eyes off the road. These digital screens require you to focus on them. You can't do it by feel because there is no feel to a touchscreen.

As a thought experiment, imagine they've taken away your accelerator pedal and brake pedal and replaced them with sliders on a giant touchscreen in the center console? Sure it could work (some cars have no physical connection anymore anyway), but what could go wrong with such a modern approach? If you take your hand off the screen for even a second while traveling down the freeway, you'd have to look at the screen again to confirm before you could "push" the brake slider. Obviously that's taking technology too far, but the same benefit of having an analog brake pedal can be enjoyed by having an analog radio dial or temperature control. They really just need to keep many of the most basic controls as a switch or a dial so people over 50 can turn down the AC without having to pull over and put our reading glasses on first.

 

The new ethos of the W223 S-Class seems to be -- MBUX Voice Comand in lieu of physical buttons. ("open the moonroof", "I'm hot", "I need massage", "gimme a light show", "Eject cassette tape", lol. Etc.)

Good luck with that.
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Right on !!!! As a life long car enthusiast, who's now approaching the age of 70, I agree 100%

 

I like that a lot.

My problem with w223 is simply that it is flat out awful interior design. Good design ages beautifully and technology does not.

 

I'd noted a new Buick commercial where its not even a Buick anymore, its your digital personal assistant named "Alexa", just on wheels. Its almost as bad as their series of "mistaken identity" commercials of a couple years ago. They can't seem to decide whether its more important to be the Whirlpool/KitchenAid/Maytag/Amana of the automotive industry or whether to be the Microsoft/Google/Apple/Amazon of the automotive industry.

Sometimes though, old technology just works and all you're going to do by improving upon it is unnecessarily complicate things. Take the dipstick for example. Yes, its kinda cool to be able to see your oil level on the dash, maybe its uncomfortably cold or hot outside and you don't want to get out and open the hood. But its a royal pain in the *** when you're trying to diagnose an oil-related engine problem. Its kind of like that old joke about how NASA spent millions of dollars to develop a ballpoint pen that could work in space while the Soviets just used a pencil. Certainly having voice recognition for some controls would be cool but with my luck though, I'd get a digital assistant named HAL.

 

Bring back the buttons! I hate having to do everything through a screen.

With screens, I can't feel my way around or intuitively go to the right position while keeping my eyes on the road, like I can with buttons. Further, even if I'm looking right at the screen while driving, the bumps and vibrations of the car mean that sometimes I'll even miss the icon for which I'm aiming and accidentally press another one, which creates a whole other problem.

Even further, sometimes I'll have to jab at the icon multiple times because I didn't hit it center-mass or maybe it didn't register my bony finger (just like the old glove box touch button on my '09 XF, which they ditched for an actual depressed button because everyone complained). And, God forbid I have to cycle through multiple screens to get to something.

And don't even get me started about trying to see screens while wearing polarized sunglasses!

On my Range Rover Sport Supercharged, I can't even change the HVAC blower speed without first going through the screen to change the physical dial from temperature to blower speed. At least on my Audi, even though the screen reflects which physical buttons or dials I'm using, I still have those physical buttons and dials, and it's so much better. I remember all of the complaints from the magazines (remember those?) about the old UI on my '11 XFR, but it never really bothered me like the "upgraded" UI on my Rover. Why? Because I wasn't forced to use it for every single thing I wanted to do, and I rarely even interacted with it.

I'm also in tech, and I abhor having to drill down into screens for every little thing. Even in a perfect world, where the screen responds instantaneously, it's still a several-second process, rather than immediate action via dedicated, physical button. And, let's face it, we're far from a perfect world.

On my Rover, even if I remember to which screens I need to navigate to do something, and then get lucky enough to press the correct button each time, there's still a substantial delay at each step, which can then take me 5 seconds just to do something which would be incredibly simple with dedicated, physical buttons.

Plus, as others have mentioned, the technology gets dated so quickly, that within a few years it's obsolete, yet you're stuck with it, including the slap-in-the-face pricing to repair the ancient tech. That's the exact reason Bugatti ditched the screen entirely.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I want to drive and interact with my car. I don't want a rolling tablet which drives itself. I don't want default lane departure warnings, collision avoidance braking, etc. If a car has them, fine, but let me turn them off by default, rather than having to turn them all off each time I start the car. Whenever I drive my mom's 2021 Infiniti Q50, I have to go into the screens and turn off 4-5 nanny features which frankly scare the crap out of me when they interfere (and most of the time, they get it wrong).

Sure, technology is great in a lot of cases, but it's also an unnecessary PITA in a lot of others. As such, screens have a place in cars for navigation, cameras, etc., but that's about it to me. They shouldn't be responsible for every single little interaction with my car. Hate, hate, hate!!!
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Good joke about the Soviets and using a pencil in space but unfortunately that is just an urban legend. The facts are actually much more in interesting too!
The Real Space Pen Story

Both USA and Soviets space missions used pencils in the early days. But it soon became obvious that there were pretty bad downsides to pencils. Tips break and float around in the cabin and worst of all is they are flammable. The million dollar space pen was developed without ANY government money as this is another urban legend that NASA spent millions developing the pen. No it was all private enterprise. All done at the expense of the Fisher pen company. They still sell the space pen and I purchased one for my wife. They are around $40 and have many variations. Even more interesting is why he decided to invent this.
Fisher Space Pen

The story about how frogs will sit in cold water that is slowly warmed until they get boiled to death is also a great story but completely false as well.
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A couple years ago I had my optometrist make me a pair of custom sunglasses, just plano sunglasses on top with readers in the bottom. He figured out the right power to see the instrument cluster (which is weaker than I use for working at my computer because its a little farther away) and even took the time to put the line (they're not progressive) at exactly the height of the top of the dash so that it doesn't blur anything important while driving. Its the best money I've ever spent on a pair of sunglasses. I also wear them when I'm walking around car shows too so that when I need to I can read the little plaques and cards and see details up close without having to carry both reading glasses and sunglasses and keep switching. And if I ever forget my reading glasses, they are adequate for operating my I-phone. Next time you're in for your eye exam, ask about getting custom sunglasses with readers.

I also have a set of magnetic clip-on polarized lenses for my prescription glasses and I can make out the Jaguar's screens with them OK, but it does appear significantly darker and they're only a light to medium bronze tint. If you've got very dark grey to black polarized lenses, then yes, those screens could appear totally blank. You might just try a lighter tint. As we get older, we tend to need more light to see and do anything. I've changed out most all my home and shop interior lighting with brighter LEDs and its made a huge difference. Alternatively, you could just tilt your head sideways to see the screen when you need to change the climate control settings.

 

​​​​​​​NO, you're NOT!!!!

 

Along this line of "improved technology", I've been a Sirius XM subscriber, both in my Jeep Grand Cherokee, as well as my wife's F-pace, for several years. Being "senior citizens", we have our radio's presets buttons keyed to the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, and they coincide with positions 1-4, on the touch screen. Easy-peasy to work with, especially when driving. Apparently, however, Sirius has decided that the 50s channel isn't as popular with it's subscribers as some other channel is, so they've re-arranged their channel numbers so the 50s channel is now "seventy something".

Maybe it's just a case of me being old and crochety, and not liking change, but is there REALLY a need to add this distraction to a mobile device? The channel numbers coinciding with the program content seemed so logical, and worked so easily....

 

My only guess is that "luxury" is heavy and they are trying to shed pounds at every turn in order to provide the longest run time on a charge. But, just a guess...

 

Possibly- batteries are extremely heavy but I feel like actual luxury interiors pale to the weight of lithium batteries so why not include both.. doesn't the new hummer EV weigh 8,000 lbs?

 

Fair point indeed...for my part, I'd rather that the new Jaguars were actually heavier...exactly the weight of a supercharged V12 engine and appropriate suspension modifications...hold the batteries altogether.