The new V-Class of Mercedes-Benz will feature the MBUX infotainment system

The star brand continues the rollout of its infotainment system called MBUX across its entire range, with the new V-Class the latest model to receive this technological update.

After its launch in passenger cars such as the A-Class, the CLA and the GLC, the intuitive, self-learning MBUX infotainment system now reaches the luxurious passenger van. Renewed earlier this year, the V-Class of Mercedes-Benz now receives an infotainment update that brings it up to date with Mercedes-Benz’s latest developments in multimedia systems.

The MBUX system will be available in the V-Class from December 2019 with a central 7-inch or 10.25-inch touchscreen and a touch panel on the centre console. According to Mercedes-Benz, the highlight of the MBUX interface is its intuitive operating concept, especially its voice control system.

To activate it, the user presses a button on the steering wheel or simply says “Hello Mercedes“. The system can then recognise “almost any sentence imaginable about the infotainment and vehicle operation areas”, as the German manufacturer itself claims.

MBUX will now also be available in the brand’s V-Class

In addition, the system is also capable of learning, adapting to the user and their voice, to the point that it can even understand slang. The MBUX infotainment system also offers so-called predictive functions, which allow it to recognise which activity the driver is likely to want to start next.

For example, if the driver regularly calls “Home” while heading home, the phone number will be suggested on the display when the system detects that the vehicle is heading to that destination. MBUX can save all infotainment and vehicle settings for up to eight individual profiles.

With the new infotainment system, the German manufacturer aims to improve the user experience. That is the main goal pursued by Mercedes-Benz with a system based on two huge capacitive touchscreens that replace the conventional instrument cluster. The brand is not entirely new to this: something very similar is already used in the Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Here, the size varies between 7 and 10 inches depending on the trim level.

Users will be able to choose between an instrumentation mode that presents the gauges and information with a sporty emphasis, a relaxed driving mode, or a classic view. It is also possible to display the map of the navigation system full screen directly behind the steering wheel. A graphics card with a 6-core processor and 8 GB of RAM ensures very high graphics quality and allows animated 3D images to be rendered with every detail.

Car-to-X technology is already a reality, and the new navigation system will be able to use information provided by cloud data from networked connected cars. From vehicle location to incident alerts, including calendar appointment reminders, availability of parking spaces at the destination, and so on.