In Europe, “Mercedes-Benz” is shorthand for “pretty nice taxicab,” but North America has always considered it an upscale brand. Not as sporty as BMW or as status symbol-y as Audi, but quietly, serenely confident, indicating a certain level of wealth and good taste. That said, most of the Mercedes you see around these days are either enormous SUVs or boxy G63s (aka the G-Wagon, also a massive SUV) that closely resemble an armored car. I find myself longing for the casually luxurious Mercedes sedans from my childhood, so I jumped at the recent chance to get into a couple of new models.
First up was the EQS 450 4Matic Sedan. You can guess from the “E” that this is an electric vehicle, and though it consistently ranks at the bottom of its segment among the types of people (like me) who rank vehicles, I actually loved this little car. Like all electrics, it rips out from a cold stop faster than a Lambo, with an insane 590 lb-ft of torque. The 335 horsepower is nothing particularly special, but it’s a smooth 335. And the car, when fully charged, gets 367 miles. I drove the EQS 450 for a week, as often as I could, and it was still at 60 percent charge when they showed up at my house to wrench it from my cold, dead hands.
Though it drove dreamily, the EQS 450’s best aspect is its design. “It looks like my Corolla,” my friend said when I showed it to him, but he was decidedly wrong about that—at least, according to me. Mercedes has deployed “one bow” Luxury Line styling to this car, and it’s sleek and low, looking longer than its five-passenger capacity. The real strength was the DD2 “Manufaktur” (so German-sounding) interior package, with custom Nappa leather upholstery, soft rear-seat pillows, and star-patterned door sills. The car also contains 64-color ambient lighting, which is really on display when you’re cruising around the city at night. This is Mercedes After Dark, and it was a real vibe. With a little thrumming ambient music going, it made me feel insouciantly rich. And it had better, given that the car, with all the special packages, cost $134,860. This was no taxicab.
Next came its ICE (that’s Internal Combustion Engine to you) cousin, the AMG CLE 53 Cabriolet. There were a number of differences between the vehicles. As the name implies, this was a convertible, though I had it during the rainiest week in a decade and didn’t take the top down once. It also bore the AMG signature, which meant it was racetrack-ready.
This CLE 53 has a 3.0-liter inline-6 turbo engine that generates 443 horsepower and goes zero-to-sixty in 4.0 seconds. It also contains a nine-speed automatic transmission that will rattle your bones if you decide to use the paddle shifters to operate it yourself. This was no smooth ride; Mercedes means for its AMGs to generate rocket vibes, with an equivalent fuel burn-off. It only gets 19 miles per gallon in the city, 26 on the highway. It has the complete opposite personality as the EQS 450.
A couple of significant notes on the CLE 53: One night, I was driving home along an access road that attracts a lot of walkers. A woman veered out of the gutter and into the street, vaguely but not squarely into the car’s path. The car shook violently and self-braked so hard that it slammed the seat belt into my sternum, leaving a V-shaped bruise that took a week to subside. On the one hand, it’s nice to know the car contains advanced safety features. However, they didn’t really need deploying at that particular moment, leaving me wondering how reliable my Benz robot overlords were.
When driving around, I prefer to use the GPS from my phone for directions. But the CLE’s onboard computer was feeling jealous, so whenever the phone directions would start, the dashboard would glow red, and then the car would repeat the directions that the phone gave me, like a naggy robot teenager in the backseat.
Then there was the weird moment on Sunday at midnight, when the car started talking to me, unbidden. The monologue was so jarringly weird that I felt like I was dreaming it. So I gave the car a cue the next day, and it repeated itself more or less verbatim:
“Mercedes,” I asked. “Can you tell me what you’re capable of as an A.I.?”
“I am here to help you find factual information,” the car said, “on a wide range of topics, particularly those related to Mercedes-Benz. While I can’t perform tasks directly like navigating or controlling vehicle functions, I can assist you in finding accurate information or assisting you to the best of my ability.”
“What else can you do?” I said.
And then “she” repeated the eerie monologue from the previous night.
“I can do things for you whenever you want. Such as calling someone, writing text messages or playing music. Because my heart’s in it, I know everything there is to know about driving in your vehicle. For example, you can tell me, ‘Hey Mercedes, drive me home.’ Or ask, ‘Hey Mercedes, is there congestion on my route?’ You can also tell me if you’re too warm, too cold, or if you’re bored or hungry. My goal is to constantly evolve in order to give you the best possible support. Every now and again, just ask me if I’ve learned anything new. I’m looking forward to hearing from you and wishing you a pleasant journey as always.”
The problem is that A.I. actually is constantly evolving, and in the age of Grok 4, heaven knows who programmed this “intelligence” into the Mercedes and when. This is not the kind of thing car companies, other than Tesla, do well, so I was very skeptical of my shipboard companion, who felt very Hal9000.
The CLE 53 Cabriolet that I drove retailed at $90,370. I’d be willing to spend a few thousand more to mechanically remove its “smart” brain. My life might depend on it.