Nagpur: The new Mercedes S-Class has some impressive self-driving technology, but the real feature is what it does for you in the driver’s seat.
It’s an unusual request from a car, but this isn’t any old sedan. This is the car of the future: The latest version of Mercedes-Benz’s six-figure flagship S-Class sedan, a plush, luxurious ride that the company also claims to be the most advanced self-driving vehicle currently on the market. Though it can’t fully drive itself, the company claims that because its computerized assistance lets the car focus on the driving, it frees you up to take part in a series of pre-programmed, mood-altering activities involving music, exercise, massage, and heat–and even aromatherapy.
As the car steers itself down a long stretch of highway, the voice–the standard GPS robotic woman’s tone–guides me through a range of seated ergonomic routines, from backside clenches to shoulder rolls to facial muscle exercises. “The exercises for the face are especially helpful because they make you smile and that stimulates happy feelings,” Daniel Mücke, head of Mercedes’s spa-like “Energizing Comfort” program, says from the seat beside me. “The body is made to move, and if you are driving for five hours, you are not moving,” Mücke says.
Mercedes’s Energizing Comfort program offers a glimpse of what we might expect once cars finally forego their steering wheels and shuttle us from point A to point B all on their own. As autonomous technology gets its sea legs, and more cars like the S-class are able to change lanes and steer around corners without help from the driver, the next question automotive engineers and designers must address is how people will spend their driving time once they no longer need to focus their attention on the road. Mercedes’s solution–a suite of software programs the company says are designed to promote feelings such as vitality, joy, and comfort using the sedan’s climate, audio, ambient lighting, massage, and “fragrance atomizing” systems–can address a range of ailments, from removing your road rage to massaging your backside to reminding you to smile.
“Let’s say you’re angry or nervous,” Mücke says, searching the menu. “The Wellbeing setting should definitely calm you down.” He pushes a button, and the cabin fills with slower music and a pink-and-purple light show.
Thus according to me the future is here, thanks for reading hope you liked it.
