2027 Mercedes-Benz C-Class Electric first drive: A long-range triumph with a few cabin quirks

If nothing else, having all those pixels enables a compelling digital experience. On the far right, the passenger has their own interface where they can queue up videos from YouTube or engage in a few underwhelming and extremely dated games. (Angry Birds, anyone?)

The rest of the experience is more modern, including a visually slick and responsive navigation interface. You can get up to 19 speakers from the Burmester sound system with Dolby Atmos support, and there's even Microsoft Teams in the dash if you really must make your commute miserable.

Vehicle settings are just a few taps away and, if you can't find something, there's an AI-powered voice agent to help.Three, actually. Mercedes has aggregated the agentic might of ChatGPT, Google and Microsoft, doling out your voice prompt to the appropriate LLM based on your request. This creates occasionally laggy responses, as some requests for restaurant reviews and menu items took quite a long time.

More annoyingly, the AI had a tendency to butt in unwanted. I was conversing with my passenger about a certain, rather frustrating topic, and out of the blue, Mercedes AI chimed in with something to the effect of: "It sounds like you really don't like [so-and-so]." It then tried to provide some helpful context to the situation that was, of course, entirely unhelpful.Thankfully, this sort of unprompted response can be disabled, but it was a somewhat disconcerting reminder that the car is always listening.

On the safety side of the technology equation, the C-Class is loaded with radar, vision and acoustic sensors. Every model has the full suite, and all have features like adaptive cruise control. However, you'll need to pay extra to unlock advanced driver assistance features, like the upcoming MB.Drive Assist Pro, which will enable the car to automatically follow navigation prompts and even stop at intersections.