Mercedes states that this will be its first production vehicle to offer the technology, and the first German carmaker to launch it in series production. The interior benefit is immediate: the more compact steering wheel improves visibility of the driver display and makes ingress and egress easier. But the real value lies deeper. Mercedes documents more than one million test kilometres, a redundant architecture with two signal paths, the ability to retain lateral control even in a complete failure scenario via rear-axle steering and wheel-specific ESP braking, and a new airbag structure engineered for the non-circular wheel form. The system is also combined with 10-degree rear-axle steering.
