Seven things we learned from Mercedes’ software boss

At the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show, TopGear.com put the big tech questions of the moment to the man in charge of software for the company that invented the car itself: Mercedes-Benz’s Magnus Ostberg.

Here’s what we told us…

1. There’s growing demand for more screen time… in cars

“There's two aspects to that," Ostberg said. "Data shows us more and more of our customers have a need and they have a desire to consume more content at standstill, [like when you’re] charging more. Secondly, people stay in their driveways to finish listening to audiobooks. That's happening. In China they actually use their car as a spa before they go up to their home after work. We see that in the data. So that's a concrete need today.”

2. Some customers just want a car to talk to when they’re lonely

“Our ultimate goal with our virtual assistants is to provide a service: it's very different in different regions what that service is. The chattiness –  just talking – is actually something that our customers in Asia want to have. They don't have a purpose, they just want someone to talk to.

“That wouldn't go so well in certain parts of Germany. So what is the purpose that you try to achieve? If I, the customer wants to [change a settling in the car] I want to see if [it] understands me, the graphical interface and the actual graphical feedback, like I can read your face. It's just as important that you understand me or you're listening. That’s why we have these different moods or personas for the virtual assistant.”

3. The new Mercedes voice assistant has four ‘moods’

“’Natural’ is very much a natural dialogue about achieving something. ‘Empathetic’ is maybe when you're running late to a meeting: “Well, I'm sorry to hear that” and so forth. ‘Personal’, if you really want to feel a personal connection knowing something and so forth, or ‘Proactive’ when you want to, “Hey! Watch out! Don't go there!” or “You're late for a meeting, come on!” It's a different tone that you're using.”

4. You can choose what mood your car speaks in… or it’ll respond to your temper

“You can personalise it, you can set it, you can tune it. But what we want to achieve is that we can detect these moods based on the context that you're in. Are you driving very fast? Or are you driving really slow? With the driver-facing facial recognition camera there is really good software right now that can recognise if you're stressed or if you're calm. It's not rocket science, it's already there.”

5. We might have already reached ‘peak screen’ – but buttons aren’t coming back

“I think customer usage and feedback is central to how we're developing right now. So yes, in some cases the quickest, easiest way is with the rotary knob. It's the quickest way to control volume. On other cases, it's actually the most intuitive.

“We see this from the data: even if we have redundancy [buttons as well as screens] but it's never used, we're eliminating it.

“When it comes to the number of screens, we're in luxury segments and we believe that with the technology at hand today the graphical representation is extremely important. Yes, we believe in voice [control]. Yes, we believe interactions also.

“We believe with today's technology, this space is the best way to do that. In the future, I'm sure it's going to change. There are more technologies coming. I've seen a lot of them. But today we see screens are really the best way to give that level of quality of graphical representation that we stand for.”

6. Mercedes is planning to fight back against the BMW i7’s massive rear seat ‘Theatre Screen’ thanks to China

“Stay tuned! We'll have a new rear passenger experience. It's really being developed out of China, as we see that need primarily coming from there. We have a slightly different philosophy when it comes to placement of screens and so forth, and you'll see that when it comes out.

"We're seeing, especially from China and from Asia, that there's a big pull for having an elevated experience in the rear.”

7. Mercedes is wary of following BMW’s attempt at selling ‘subscription features’ like heated seats or adaptive cruise control…

“Our philosophy at Mercedes is that this is going to be a luxury experience. That means we're not ‘nickeling and diming’ our customers. It's more of a holistic experience.

“But yes, our customers of course will have to subscribe to a package and so forth, but we believe that our customers don't want to be ‘nickel and dimed’ in their face. That's not what our customers are looking for.”