Stellantis might have pulled out of the CES 2024, but there’ll still be plenty of OEM action, including from Mercedes, which has just teased the AI-heavy infotainment system it’ll be bringing to Las Vegas in January.
The German automaker says the next generation of its MBUX system takes the ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice assistant to a new level, claiming that it will deliver human-like interaction that should make operating car functions without removing your hands from the wheel less painful than it currently is.
Mercedes says the CES-bound MBUX runs on the company’s in-house developed operating system MB.OS and will deliver ‘several digital innovations’ when it’s presented in January. It’s not giving much away about them for now, but it does mention that the infotainment setup runs high-resolution game-engine graphics from Unity. Though billed as a concept infotainment system, it’s a thinly disguised preview of what Mercedes buyers will get in their production cars very soon.
Related: Mercedes And ChatGPT Team Up To Bring AI Voice Assistant to Cars
If the dashboard looks familiar it’s because it’s from the Concept CLA Class Mercedes unveiled in Munich in September, and which makes its North American debut – now with AI tech – in Las Vegas in January. Mercedes says the four-door coupe concept offers a “close-to-production insight into the future family of four vehicles.”
Back in September, Mercedes said the CLA range would include two SUVs, and a shooting brake wagon as well as the four-door coupe. All four will be built from the same MMA architecture and the coupe’s range was quoted as 466 miles (750 km).
And the CLA isn’t the only future tease that Mercedes is bringing to Nevada. It will also display a camouflaged prototype of the first-ever electric G-Class. However, the press release stops short of referring to it as an EQG, the company having been reported as planning to drop the EQ naming strategy.
We’ve already snapped prototypes of the facelifted G-Class (seen below) in combustion and electric forms but hopefully, we’ll get some more concrete tech details at CES that will help us build a picture of what will be on sale for the 2025 model year.
