The 2022 Mercedes-Benz S-Class boasts an unbelievable number of safety innovations
The upcoming Benz flagship even features the first frontal airbags for rear-seat passengers
September 08 2020, Graeme Fletcher
To maintain its position as the company’s flagship, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class is receiving a host of new innovations aimed at making it safer and easier to drive — it all falls under the “Innovation by Intelligence” umbrella.
First is the fully-active E-Active Body Control suspension — it has been given a healthy dose of smarts. While similar to the system introduced in the 2020 GLE, the focus is more about comfort and improving side impact safety. The advanced suspension setup should arrive in Canada in the 2022 S-Class.
The air springs take the load of the vehicle and keep thing on the level while the active dampers, which are connected to a motor/pump by hydraulic lines, use a 48-volt architecture to change the damping forces. Mercedes-Benz says it delivers the best handling/comfort balance based on the drive mode selected. It does this by changing the damping and spring forces at each wheel individually. This not only counters unwanted body roll, it takes care of lift under acceleration and pitch when braking.
This side impact ability will be augmented by a new centre airbag. During a severe side impact, this airbag deploys between the driver and front passenger to reduce the risk of them cracking heads. As this point, the Canadian roll-out of this feature is being finalized. The two outboard rear riders also get more protection in the form of the world’s first frontal airbag system in a back seat application — it does the same thing for the rear-seat riders as the front airbags do to protect the front-seat riders in the event of a head-on impact.
To make the large S-Class drive like a much smaller car, it will adopt a new 48-volt-based four-wheel steering system — as with the suspension.
Next up, four individual cameras (front, rear and both sides) blend their images into a 360-degree three-dimensional view of the vehicle’s surroundings. The scene is shown in the central display. The driver has the option of rotating the view and it has a zoom function.
Finally, the self-parking feature can, for the first time, use the lines defining a parking space to park the car. Previously, it used other cars to define the available space. When the system is engaged it has an automatic braking function. It will stop the S-Class if the driver takes no action to avoid a pedestrian or vehicle passing in front of or behind it.
