A new class of luxury?

Lisbon, Portugal — Butlers, we have good news for you: Your jobs are safe for now, since the robot that can interpret the vagaries of human communication with precision hasn’t been made yet.

Chauffeurs, we suggest you start polishing your CVs if the latest Mercedes-Benz E-Class is anything to go by, though.

Traditionally a big seller in Singapore, the E-Class is the closest thing there is to a default choice, if there is such a thing in the big, luxury sedan segment — its chief competition comes from the BMW 5 Series.

But this model, the tenth-generation, codenamed W213, seems to have everything it needs to continue the brand’s history, and perhaps make something new, too.

Luxury upsized

Like every other car in this class, the car’s grown tremendously — by 43mm overall, and with 65mm more space between the wheels. That means it beats the 5 Series, and all other competitors like the Audi A6 and Lexus GS, in terms of sheer size.

Visually, and internally, it’s like an S-Class luxury limo wrought small, or a smaller C-Class that’s been stretched.

That it looks and behaves like the other two sedans, which are the latest generation of proven big-sellers for Mercedes, is certainly no coincidence. All three are based on the German car maker’s latest rear-wheel drive architecture, incorporating more high-strength steel and aluminium for reduced weight and greater strength.

That, and a more powerful version of the brand’s 2-litre turbo engine endow the E 300 with plenty of effortless forward thrust, but it also hides speed very well, thanks to its supremely quiet cabin.

Chauffeurs, beware

This is really no surprise, given what we know of the C and S-Class cars already. But the sheer amount of technology built into the E-Class is truly eye-raising.

On the highway, the car has what Mercedes dubs semi-autonomous driving, in the form of its Drive Pilot system.

Engage it just like cruise control, and it automatically maintains a preset distance to the car in front of you (from a standstill all the way to 210kmh) and guides you through bends at up to 130kmh.

The former will also automatically slow down for speed cameras or limits, while the latter no longer requires road markings to navigate by and there’s even a system to help you change lanes.

While all this may not be considered extremely ground-breaking these days, the systems do reduce driver workload considerably.

For example, Drive Pilot would make a dash to Kuala Lumpur much less taxing, or give less experienced drivers added confidence driving at higher speeds.

The car also has autonomous collision mitigation systems with a higher range of function too. For example, if you aren’t paying attention and a person runs in front of the car, it can not only mitigate a crash by braking, but will even help you when steering away from the obstacle.

Again, these aren’t world firsts but the E-Class is one of the first cars to pack such a high level of technology into a single, coherent package.

That’s made possible by sensors (a wide-view stereo camera and multi-stage radar are just two) with higher resolution, so the car “sees” what is happening even better than the driver can. It can even “talk” to other Mercedes cars to find out road conditions ahead.

Fingertip Innovation

The tech onslaught doesn’t stop there. Like the glass cockpit that the S-Class debuted, the dashboard features two 12.3-inch high-resolution active displays, one offering driving information, and one for all other functions.

A new innovation is two touch-sensitive buttons on the steering wheel, which let you control each screen without taking your hands from the wheel.

Not only can you port your car’s key to an NFC-enabled smartphone, you can even get out of the car and let the car park — or pull out from a parking lot — itself with the Remote Parking Pilot app.

If the E-Class sounds like it’s a Luddite nightmare on wheels, you’re right. At times, it can feel overwhelming: There are so many things to fiddle with, and with such dense menus, that you certainly shouldn’t try to adjust anything while the car’s moving.

Given its years of being an almost standard-issue towkay-mobile, Mercedes will surely make the most sales from a less costly model without all the autonomous trimmings, like the E 200, which has a more modest 184bhp from the same 2-litre engine.

But an E-Class with all the driver assistance systems onboard means that you can choose to do more — or less — at the flick of a switch. That, in the era that precedes true autonomous driving, could be considered the newest kind of luxury car.

MERCEDES-BENZ E 300

Engine: 1,991cc, in-line four, turbocharged, 245hp, 370Nm

Performance: 250kmh, 0-100kmh: 6.3s, 6.6L/100km, 149g/km CO2

Price: $TBA

On Sale: Q3 2016

PROS: Very refined, more room and drives for you

CONS: Technophobes need not apply