Mercedes-Benz reveals 2018 A-Class

Mercedes-Benz has urged people to expect more connectivity, luxury-class infotainment and a huge step forward in refinement from its all-new A-Class hatch.

The fourth generation of the smallest Mercedes-badged car, which will arrive in Australia in the third quarter of this year, will make its debut at next month’s Geneva motor show.

Heavily based on the Concept A sedan from the Shanghai motor show last year, the W177 A-Class also has clear echoes of the all-new CLS in the front end.

The second (after the B-Class) of a claimed eight new small Mercedes-Benz models to share the upgraded MFA 2 architecture, the A-Class will eventually be joined by the CLA, the CLA Shooting Brake, the GLA crossover, the GLB off roader and a sedan version of the A-Class. The latter is being delivered to compete with the surprise success of Audi’s A3 sedan, while all of the new models will sweep through the small Mercedes models by 2020.

They’ll be joined by the all-electric EQ A hatch, which Mercedes previewed at last September’s Frankfurt motor show, as the zero-emission challenger for 2019-2020.

While Mercedes is touting the new A-Class as a more mature piece of exterior design, the true steps forward have been made in refinement from the chassis and in the connectivity of its Comand infotainment system.

It uses an all-new interior that is a step ahead even of what Mercedes uses in its flagship S-Class limousine, with a new Mercedes-Benz User Experience (MBUX) that combines a new voice-control Ask Mercedes technology and a touch-screen system to control the entire cabin.

The five-seat, five-door hatchback has 30cm more metal between its axles and its front wheels are 14mm further apart than before, even though the MFA 2 underpinnings are essentially heavy reworks of the third-generation A-Class’s cheaper MFA structure. The changes have added 7mm to its front headroom (8mm in the rear) and 35mm to its front elbow room (or 36mm in the back).

With the outgoing car’s architecture originally intended to also be used beneath a budget Chrysler, the MFA 2’s engineers knew to target refinement and stiffness in the upgrade.

Size and strength

The torsional rigidity has taken a claimed leap forward, the axles are now mounted in a different way, there is more sound deadening material used through the car, particularly in the rear, and its 0.25 coefficient of aerodynamic drag is claimed to be class leading.

The car is bigger than before outside as well as inside, with its overall length of 4419mm a 12cm leap on the old car, while it’s also 16mm wider (1796mm) and 2mm higher (1440mm).

The extra stiffness in the body allowed Mercedes to chop out the massive intrusions that limited the old car’s luggage loading area. They are no longer needed to brace the body structure, so it gives the new car 200mm more loading width for the 370-litre luggage area. It’s not only 29 litres more capacious than before, but 115mm longer, too.

Inside edge

As we’ve previously reported, the interior of the A-Class has taken a huge step forward, much like the C-Class did on its way to trouncing not only its class rivals in sales, but plenty of well-known volume models as well.

There’s a black-panel display and a wide cockpit screen, based around a standard package of two 7.0-inch display screens. The entry version has two tubular analogue dials and a touchscreen unit in the centre of the dash and, to make people feel like they’re choosing something other than the cheapest version, it’s dubbed “Classic”. (The next two versions (or price points, for the cruel) are “Sport” and “Discreet”.)

It’s not quite as Spartan as the name suggests, though, because the steering wheel buttons also control a lot of functions, there’s Bluetooth for telephones and a USB connection for everything else.

The middle level delivers a 7.0-inch digital instrument cluster with a 10.3-inch infotainment screen, while the top-level unit runs to twin 10.3-inch digital screens that seem to run almost from door to door.

The big-screen infotainment system is also touchscreen, delivers a wifi hotspot, can add (at an extra cost) high-def navigation, live traffic updates, a head-up display, Burmester audio and Car-to-X communication, when cities are ready for it.

The short, two-tier dashboard is topped by an instrument cluster that looks a lot like the S-Class’s two conjoined screens, only without a cowl, making it stand free and look for all the world like it’s the interior of a concept car.

They’ve used a louvred-style film on the screens to stop light reflecting off the windscreen and windows, and the simplicity of the look allows the two-tiered, sculpted dash itself to be symmetrical, reducing complexity and fussiness.

There is an all-new row of switchgear for the ventilation system, carved out of aluminium, in a ribbon below the three central vents. There’s also a soft-covered armrest behind a squared touchpad.

The Chatbot

The MBUX voice-command system now runs to the philosophy of Amazon’s Alexa setup, allowing for chattier, real-world conversations and instructions and effectively acting as a concierge.

It is capable of networking with the Internet of Things and cloud-based services from Google and Amazon’s Alexa (though not yet Apple’s Siri), allowing drivers to just ask for any information about the car, the drive or their own work or personal diaries.

But it’s the Ask Mercedes function that Mercedes-Benz expects to the A-Class’s most popular digital feature.

“Research shows most people are only aware of about 20 percent of the features available to them from the products they buy,” Sajjad Khan, Daimler’s vice president for Digital Vehicle & Mobility, said. “This makes it easier to understand what the products can do.

Ask Mercedes is claimed to help there by combining artificial intelligence with an augmented-reality chatbot, so anybody inside the car can ask questions by typing them on a smartphone or using voice recognition. (The E-and S-Classes take this further, letting people scan the car’s buttons or controls on a smartphone’s camera and then explaining what they do and how to use them.) It can also be used away from the car via Facebook Messenger, Google Home or Amazon Echo.

It can answer questions about driving styles or fuel-saving techniques or even the Daimler ownership structure and it’s augmented by upgrades to the little-understood Mercedes Me interactive system.

“Customers can simply say: ‘Alexa, ask Mercedes me for the range’ and they will be told how many kilometres they can drive before the next refuel,” Kahn said.

“Further functions cover the vehicle position or the option of starting or turning off the auxiliary heating.

“Drivers of the new E- and S-Class in Great Britain can also give the following command for navigation or POI destinations: ‘Alexa, tell Mercedes me to send an address to the car’.“

Oddly, it’s available in English first and in Malaysian, rather than German or Chinese, and it can be retrofitted to cars built after 2014 with a Mercedes me communication module.

More interior stuff

Its owners will be also be able to unlock the car, along with opening its sunroof and windows on hot days, from a smartphone app, while there’s an “in-car office” available that lets drivers pre-load phone numbers, meetings and even conference-call PINs before each drive so they don’t need to look at their phones en route.

The standard rear seat remains a 60:40 split-fold unit, but there is a 40:20:40 option that can tilt the rear seat forward to add to the luggage space, without having to drop the seats. The luggage area is 225mm wider than before, swallowing two sets of golf clubs, a wheelchair or even (for the first time) a bicycle.
The clean up of the body-in-white engineering has allowed a claimed 10 percent more exterior visibility from the driver’s seat, particularly improving the over-the-shoulder rearward visibility, which remains a major bugbear of other MFA cars, like the GLA and the CLA.

It’s not all good news, though, as the W177 follows Volkswagen’s Polo in refusing to offer overhead grab handles. It has coat hooks on the inner handles of the hatch so people can hang coats or bags or laundry while they pack the rest of the hatch area, but no overhead grab handles.

But it’s the leap in both technology and trim quality that will stand out, along with an ambient light show that includes 64 colours and even lights up the inside of the sculpted, circular air vents, which come straight from the E-Class Coupe.

The A-Class’s interior uses a lot of equipment from other Mercedes-Benz offerings, including the steering wheel-mounted switchgear and trackpads from the S-Class limousine.

In other big news: Mercedes has bowed to buyer pressure and moved the cruise control switchgear onto the steering wheel after decades with its single lever behind the left side of the wheel.

Its seating package has had a huge overhaul, too, with top-spec models including seat ventilation and massage functions, while even the base cars adopt height adjustment for the front passenger seat for the first time.

In a move to thwart an upwardly mobile Volkswagen Golf and an upcoming Audi A3, the A-Class also adopts materials like open-pore wood trims to justify a climb up market.

It also apes the A3 by swallowing 1.5-litre drink bottles in the front door pockets and one-litre units in the rear. The centre console’s cupholders also take a half-litre mug and can be removed from beneath the roller-door cover to create extra storage space.

It offers optional Multibeam LED headlights, which also use adaptive high beam to dim and brighten depending on other traffic and roadside conditions.

The oily bits

It will start production with three four-cylinder turbocharged engines, but more engines are planned as production rates increase.

The base petrol engine will be an M 282 four-cylinder, with just 1.4 litres of capacity for the A 200. The 120kW, 250Nm engine, originally designed for service with Renault and Nissan, will arrive as standard with a particulate filter, pre-empting a threatened new EU mandate, and cylinder deactivation.
It will be available with either a six-speed manual or a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and uses a claimed 5.6 litres/100km on the NEDC consumption cycle.

The M 260 is an in-house 2.0-litre, four-cylinder petrol unit and Mercedes claims it will deliver up to 165kW of power and 350Nm of torque in its role across the A 250’s engine bay. At its highest performance level, Benz claims a 0-100km/h time of 6.2 seconds for the M 260 and insists it has been forced to fit a speed limiter at 250km/h.

It uses a claimed 6.0 litres/100km on the combined cycle via a seven-speed dual clutch transmission, for emissions of 141 grams of CO2/km, or just eight more than the A 200.

The only diesel in the launch range will be the Renault-Nissan-sourced OM 608, with 1.5 litres of capacity, a particulate filter and urea injection to minimise its NOx emissions. Benz claims the A 180 d’s OM 608 will deliver 108 grams of CO2/km, with 85kW of power and 260Nm of torque.

It’s only available with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, too, and Benz claims a 4.1 litre/100km-consumption figure.

Benz has a new nine-speed automatic transmission in house that’s widely used, but it won’t turn sideways for the A-Class until late this year.

Beneath the metal, 16-inch wheels are standards, though non-AMG A-Classes can run up to 19-inch wheels for the first time, presumably for people who have regular access to chiropractors.

All A-Classes will use a MacPherson strut front end that is heavily modified from its predecessor, but the standard torsion-beam rear end of the entry cars is supplanted by a multi-link rear suspension for the A 250.