Driving the S-Class Test Vehicle

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Inside the "haptic accelerator pedal" Mercedes-Benz S-Class Test Car

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Hey Guys
It's normal to tell story's from the beginning to the end, but this time I will start at the end and then come to the beginning.


As you may already seen on The Car Addicts or my private Facebook profile (you can subscribe to my postings!) I drove some nice Mercedes on Friday and Saturday. That happened thanks to my invitation to the "E300 BlueTec Hybrid and Efficiency Champions"-driving event. But more Details about those Days, the three Cars I drove and all the informative things my brain has absorbed soon on this Place.

The promised end now: On Saturday our last destination was the TV Tower in Stuttgart and after having a nice chat with some Mercedes-Benz experts I used the opportunity to drive a current S-Class testing vehicle.

This S-Class already tests a "haptic accelerator pedal", in german called "haptisches Gaspedal", since 3 years now. As part of the hybridization this is and will be a fuel-efficient measure.

How does it work?

the haptic accelerator pedal, Image by Mercedes-Benz

Image you're driving your Car. Everything is normal - you drive, you brake, you get angry about the others. We all know that. But then the traffic light goes red, the Cars in front of you start to brake and you could do this too. But your intelligent Car already knew that a millisecond before you and "knocked" against your shoe that is still on the accelerator pedal. A gently pulse to let you know "Please take your foot off the pedal and let the car roll out to let me help you to save fuel".
After leaving the accelerator pedal be a decorational part of the Car the Transmission goes from the automatic mode "D" into the neutral one "N" and through this you extra save some fuel.

The other Part of the haptic pedal is that there is a resistance point. You're driving in the City with a speed limit of 50 km/h (32 mph). Just think about it, you don't need to do a Kick-Down every time you you start accelerating (!) and the resistance point is like a little point that says (Oh, the Car is talking a lot to us today ... :-D) "You do not need to go into the rev limiter today, don't you think so? Keep your foot cool and enjoy your life".


It was so much fun and I bet you can believe the way I felt while I was cruisin with this S-Class.

As I'm anyway a fuel saving driver (Not!) the pedal never knocked automatically so it had to be manually activated for me to feel the way a racer will feel :-)


In this sense:
... when the accelerator pedal knocks twice
you save the environment and your purse ;-)

all the Glory inside the trunk

Lisa