Commentary: The Driver as a Slave to His Car

What a horror of paternalism for drivers! Thanks to artificial intelligence, my own Mercedes-Benz will soon be able to learn my everyday habits and make unsolicited suggestions about what I might need or want. And all of this visually wrapped in a dashboard landscape that isn't all that dissimilar to that of an old S-Class, except that all the once-high-quality knobs and buttons have now been placed on a Hyperscreen. The pioneer in this was Tesla, where they simply hung a huge screen in the car, on which the user first has to tap and swipe their way around - ergonomically sometimes senseless, but at least still operable of one's own free will. A great and pleasant step forward was voice recognition - provided it works like with BMW or Daimler. But even that already seems to be somewhat passé...

Because now comes the MBUX Hyperscreen: a 3D experience on 2400 square centimeters of flat glass. Leather, wood, aluminum, great knurling or buttons - once a Daimler specialty? Nope - all is flat, OLED-controlled glass, cold and smooth and somehow brrrrrrrrrrrrr... and while BMW in the iX and Nissan in the Ariya pack entire living rooms into the car with wood (and yes, sometimes plush or velour), and then make it look like a loft with backlit buttons - because, after all, you are still sitting in a car and not in a cozy apartment - Daimler spans a Mega screen in front of you, which AI-controlled is supposed to know everything better than I do!

This makes the driver feel small and powerless. How wonderful were the times when you could operate high-quality buttons and switches in an S-Class that seemed infinitely dumb from today's perspective, exactly when you needed them - and thus had full sovereignty and freedom in operation, without constantly having to feel like you're sitting in a car that is much smarter than you. And that, moreover, constantly records all data and actions, which it actually has no business knowing. Especially since visually nothing new is offered except a cold glass plate on which all control elements are digitally rather than haptically stored - at least they stuck to an intuitively ergonomic arrangement of all control elements, which in the aforementioned old S-Class were so much more "experienceable" than on the new patronizing screen, with which the EQS will henceforth command its driver.