2017 Mercedes-Benz E300: Mercedes Made An E-Class Better Than An S-Class part 1
The top-rung Mercedes-Benz S-Class has long been the testbed for the latest technology from the automaker; lately, semi-autonomous tech and all.
Now Mercedes is trying something different—putting an array of new tech on the new midsize 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which will trickle up instead of down.
But when it's not trying to drive itself, the E300 is so aggressive you'll have to double check that there are only four cylinders under the hood.
What do I mean new technology? The car makes crashes easier on your ears in the event of a crash.
It warns other new E-Classes of wrecks and hazards on the road.
The dashboard is mostly. screen.
The steering wheel has tablet-like control.
And that's just to start.
The only version of the car I had available was the all-wheel-drive E300, which puts down 241 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque from its 20-liter turbo four-cylinder engine.
The car starts at $51,250, which is just under $1,000 cheaper than the old E-Class.
Optional equipment—and boy, there is a lot of it—hasn't been priced yet, so that marker can climb pretty quickly if you want all of the gadgets.
Even in an era of endless SUV proliferation, the E-Class is still one of Mercedes' top-selling vehicles.
That's doubly true here, since the new generation of the E-Class introduces a set of technologies that'll eventually be put on the rest of the manufacturer's lineup.
Some of those technologies were great, others—mainly, the semi-autonomous "assistance" ones—weren't as consistent as expected.
But hey, there's always room for improvement.
Let's talk about it. The Look.
On the outside, well, it looks like a Mercedes sedan.
At one point on the drive, there was a C-Class driving behind our vehicle and we couldn't tell whether it was a member of out E-Class fleet.
That's not to say the car is bad looking from the outside—it's just another Mercedes sedan.
It's classy, it's clean and it has nice lines, but it's not shouty.
The design of the first-generation Mercedes CLS inspires the line stretching toward the back of the vehicle, and the car's taillights will vary in intensity throughout the day to avoid blinding the person behind you when you hit the brakes.
While the car doesn't look necessarily huge, it is a big vehicle.
The car itself is two inches longer than the outgoing E-Class, and the wheelbase is three inches wider.
Its size is kind of shocking when you first get behind the wheel, but the Mercedes folks told us that the car weighs a full 154 pounds less than the last model.
We're fully in the era where cars can get bigger, but also have to get lighter.
The sport models, like this one, will have a flat Mercedes logo on the hood and the grille, while the luxury-line versions will forgo the grille emblem and have the classic standing star on the hood.
As for colors, the "Selenite Grey Magno" at the top of this post is perhaps the best looking.
It's a matte finish and it looks just plain sleek.
The Interior.
Though the outside isn't necessarily a standout in the Mercedes lineup, the interior of the new E-Class is where the magic really happens.
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