Mercedes-Benz explains the 2021 S-Class tech's 'magic' — and why it makes animal noises

Mercedes-Benz is packing a mile-long list of technology features into the next-generation S-Class, including a handful that we've never seen in a car before. Autoblog digitally sat down with some of the engineers and designers who developed the model to learn more about why upping its tech quotient was so significant.

"Looking back, the S-Class has always been a mirror of the decade it's in," Gorden Wagener, the head of Mercedes parent company Daimler's design department, told Autoblog. "The W222 reflects the last decade, so the W223 will reflect the current one. I think it's a very progressive time, even outside of the automotive industry, so we wanted the S-Class to be very progressive. It's a bit tech-y, yeah; it's high-tech in a luxury shell. It needs to be in order to define the decade we're in. We designed the most progressive S-Class ever. It's going to be the most perfect one in terms of proportions, especially considering what you can do with a three-box design." 

One of the first digital features drivers will experience after taking a seat in the new S-Class is a configurable instrument cluster with a real three-dimensional effect. This isn't an in-car IMAX theater; drivers will not need to wear 3D glasses to see the tachometer come to life. It consists of a conventional LCD display with a special pixel structure and a controllable LCD aperture grille. Mercedes added what it calls a barrier mask a few sixteenths of an inch in front of the LCD screen and linked it to the car's eye-tracking technology, so the driver's right and left eyes see different pixels, and the image is continuously adjusted as-needed. This system is complicated, and fine-tuning it likely wasn't cheap, but Mercedes said executives approved it largely because it's cool and unique.

"There is definitely a 'Wow!' effect, it looks very futuristic. It falls in line with the three-dimensional effect you see in the augmented-reality head-up display, where you see the arrows in front of the car. It's magic when you drive that, and the 3D display has a similar effect. I think it's a stunning new technology," Gorden Wagener, the head of Daimler's design department, told Autoblog. Motorists who disagree with him will be able to turn the 3D effect off.