The redesigned 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-class, the serene, cetacean presence you see before you, this sack of krill, is probably the worlds most technologically rich automobile. 新的设计的梅赛德斯-飞驰(Mercedes-Benz)2014款S级轿车，也就是你眼前看见的这个气质稳重、体型可观的家伙，有可能是世界上科技含量最非常丰富的汽车。The companys new flagship sedan/limousine/state car requires the services of 60 onboard computers, up to 100 servo motors (operating, among other things, the powered door and trunk closures, seat-belt tensioners, and the elaborate articulation of the seats), and more than 500 LED lighting units, from its taillamps to its (amazing, game-changing) headlamps. Under the flat, brooding instrument binnacle are two high-res, 12.3-inch TFT screens, arrayed cinema style in a single, broad bezel that, at night, floats in a pool of suffused LED backlighting, like something signed out from the Starfleet motor pool. Holy mother of awesome. 飞驰新的出品的这一系列旗舰轿车/大型豪华轿车/礼宾车配有60个车载电子控制系统、多达100部伺服电机（它们操纵电动门、行李箱开闭、安全带拉张器和细致的座椅无轨电车），以及遍及尾灯及其（令人惊叹、转变游戏规则的）前大灯的500多个LED灯光元件。平展低覆的仪表台下是两块12.3英寸的高分辨率TFT屏幕，它们以影院风格排序在一块宽广的面板上。
面板在晚间则不会弥漫在一片漫射的LED背光当中，如同从星际舰队车辆调度场抽调的车队。真是过于震惊了。Gorden Wagener, Mercedes-Benz head of design, told me that the new S-class was the best car in the world. I am not ready to make such a pronouncement, and Id be unlikely to do so anyway about a car that looks like it was swallowed by a manatee. But the S-class is unquestionably a tour de force, a showy, almost arrogant display of auto-making genius (assuming it all holds together). The important thing here is Stuttgarts willingness to invoke best car verbiage, which historians associate with icons such as the Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, Duesenberg SJ, Mercedes-Benz 300SL, Bugatti Veyron and -- a late entry on the list -- Tesla. Cheeky monkeys. 飞驰负责管理设计事务的主管戈登瓦格纳(Gorden Wagener)对笔者说道，新款S级轿车是“世界最差的汽车”。
我还没有准备好作出这样的表态，而且无论如何我也不大可能就一辆看起来形似被海牛毁灭的汽车做到此表态。不过，毫无疑问的是，S级轿车是一款力作，一款张扬地、完全是轻视地尽展汽车生产天赋的产品（假设这些特点需要同时共存的话）。
最重要的是斯图加特乐意用于“最差的汽车”这一措辞，因为历史学家们往往把它与劳斯莱斯(Rolls-Royce)的“银魅”(Silver Ghost)、迪森贝格(Duesenberg)的SJ、飞驰的300SL、布加迪威龙(Bugatti Veyron)以及新近重新加入此列的特斯拉(Tesla)等标志性车型联系在一起。淘气的家伙。For four decades and five generations of the S-class, the car has traditionally been the companys technology icebreaker, introducing now-fundamental systems such as stability control and ABS braking, adaptive cruise control and adaptive body-roll control. In that time, S-class product planning has also become increasingly a victim of its own rhetoric, with each generation obliged to blow buyers minds anew, sometimes with trivial, half-baked technologies (the shambolic first edition of the infrared night-vision system comes to mind). 飞驰S级轿车前后几经四十年时间和五代车型，它历年来是飞驰获得技术突破的车型，发售了现在已必不可少的系统，比如车身平稳控制系统、防抱死制动器系统、自适应巡弋掌控以及自适应车身弯曲控制系统等。
在此期间，S级系列产品的设计日益沦为其豪言壮语的受害者，每一代新车型都被迫向买家呈现出新的东西，有时只是微不足道尚能不成熟期的“技术”（我回想了杂乱的第一代红外线夜视系统）。This new car represents a genuine break with the past on several fronts, and they are, in descending order of importance: active safety; cabin materials and construction; in-cabin electronic functions and amenities. Indeed, the sheer weight of innovation in this car -- more than 2,000 patents flutter in its slipstream -- is itself theatrical, a message to consumers and competitors alike: A giant has awakened. Checkbooks, run for your lives. 这款新车型确确实实在几个方面都与过去的车型截然不同，按重要性从低到较低排序，它们分别是主动安全性、驾驶舱的用材与结构、驾驶舱内的电子设备与便利设施。
显然，这款车分量十足的创新性──它集2,000多项专利于一身──本身就十分引人注目，向消费者和竞争者表达出有一条消息：巨人早已苏醒了。支票簿，急忙逃走去吧。It almost doesnt matter where you start. Would you like to know about the perfume injection integrated into the cabin air-filtration system, offering one of four fragrances (human-factors approved, Im sure) held in a cut-glass reservoir in the glove compartment? German engineering meets John Waterss Odorama. 无论你着眼的是哪一方面，它完全都无可挑剔。你想要理解一下它驾驶舱空气滤清系统集成的香氛喷雾发生器吗？香氛精油鲜花在手套箱中的雕花玻璃容器内，有四种香型可供选择（我敢肯定这个人性化因素不会获得接纳）。
这堪称是德国工艺邂逅了约翰沃特斯(John Waters)电影的香氛卡。Heres a fun one: Magic Body Control, which uses stereoscopic cameras integrated into the windshield header to read the road ahead, looking for shadow and contrast that might indicate a perturbation in pavement, so it can instantly adjust the air suspension in anticipation of the bump. The magic part is that it seems to make speed bumps disappear. 它还有一个有意思的功能：魔力车身控制系统(Magic Body Control)。
它利用前挡风玻璃上方的立体摄像头来扫瞄前方路面状况，找寻有可能指出路面有障碍物的阴影和鲜明，以便预测摇晃从而立刻调整气垫。其“有魔力的”一面是它或许让减速带在它的轮下消失了。Among other things, Mercedes is attempting to reassert its incumbency as the safest car in the world. To that end, a fully equipped S550 (figure $135,000) is like a freaking Awacs plane, with the aforementioned stereo cameras, long-range thermal imaging (Night Vision Assist with active pedestrian illumination), and a dozen or so ultrasonic and radar-based sensors that create a multi-wavelength, 3-D map of the world around the car. 除了其他方面，梅赛德斯还企图强化其作为全球最安全性汽车的地位。
为此目的，覆以配版的S550（售价135,000美元（约合人民币82万元））就如一架配有了让人震惊的机载预警和控制系统(Awacs)的飞机，它配有了上文提及的立体摄像头和远程热光学系统（不具主动辨识行人功能的夜视辅助系统），以及约十几个可将车辆周围环境绘制出多波长3-D地图的超声波或雷达传感器。This sensor fusion is fed into the cars driver-assist systems, including: Distronic Plus; active lane-keeping; all-speed adaptive cruise control (Stop and Go Pilot) that follows the flow of congested traffic without driver intervention; and active lane-departure correction, which nudges the car back in a lane via asymmetric application of the front brakes. These technologies, which Mercedes collectively calls Intelligent Drive, basically give the car situational awareness. 这一“传感器融合”技术被带入车辆的驾驶员辅助系统，它还包括限距控制系统增强版(Distronic Plus)，主动式车道维持技术，在交通堵塞状况下需要驾驶员介入之后可追随前方车辆停停走走的加速段自适应巡弋控制技术（停走一行(Stop and Go Pilot)），以及可在车辆背离车道时通过前制动器的单侧制动器使车辆移回原车道的主动式车道背离缺失技术。这些技术被飞驰总称作“智能驾驶”系统，它使车辆基本上不具备了情境感官能力。
Example: With its array of rear sensors, the car can detect the threat of an impending rear collision and react, by going into crash-hardening mode, cinching down the passenger seat belts, rolling the windows up, and locking the brakes, to reduce the delta-v -- the violence of the crash, in other words -- and minimize the risk of the cars being thrown forward into another vehicle or an intersection. In Euro-spec cars, the brilliant LED taillights strobe to alert the driver of the closing car (U.S. regs currently limit strobing lights to emergency and official vehicles). 例如，因车辆后部覆有一批传感器，所以它能探测到迫近的追撞威胁并作出反应，转入外用碰撞模式，向上乘客的安全带、纳上车窗、瞄准刹车，以减少速度变化率(delta-v)──也就是碰撞的强度──并将车辆被向前甩到另一辆车上或十字路口中的风险降到低于。在欧洲版的车型中，暗淡的LED尾灯不会频闪以警告迫近车辆的驾驶员（美国目前的规定只限急救车和公务车用于频闪灯）。I know what youre thinking: Who knew you could be this fascinated and bored at the same time? But the degree to which all this approaches a reliable, robust, autopilot feature -- Mercedes goes so far as to use the phrase semiautonomous -- makes the S-class historically significant. Daimler has invested heavily in driver-assist and crash-avoidance/mitigation-systems research over the past decade, as well as advanced research in human factors engineering. Now the company is beginning to commercialize these investments. 我告诉你们心里在想要什么：谁告诉你不会会在如此著迷的同时又深感厌烦呢？不过，所有这些技术早已超过的可信强大的自动驾驶程度──飞驰甚至用于了“半自动驾驶员”一词──彰显了S级轿车以最重要历史意义。过去几十年间，戴姆勒(Daimler)在驾驶员辅助与避撞/撞击减轻系统研究、以及人性化设计的前沿研究中投放了大量资金，现在该公司开始将这些投资商业化。
Take note of the moment: Mercedes is the original, the ultimate old-established firm, with a lot of stakeholders, stepping into relatively unknown territory with new technologies of high criticality. The company already has fully autonomous prototype vehicles in hand, using technologies that in some cases have yet to be approved by safety regulators in Europe and North America. For example, the S-classs Adaptive High Beam Assist can pinpoint the position of an oncoming vehicle and activate tiny shutters built into the headlamps to block, in real time, the portion of high-beam that would otherwise shine on and blind the other driver. This system outpaces current U.S. headlight regulations, which require a separate switch setting for high and low beams. 请注意这一刻：飞驰是最先的顶级老牌汽车制造商，享有大量股东，现在它凭借极为关键的新技术踏入了一个比较不得而知的领域。飞驰早已研发出有全自动驾驶原型车，而且使用了一些某些情况下尚需欧洲与北美的安全监管机构批准后的技术。
例如，S级轿车的自适应远光灯辅助系统能确认迎面而来驶向的车辆的方位，启动前大灯中的小遮光片，以动态制止收到可能会照着对方车辆驾驶员并使其眼花的远光灯光束。该系统远超过了美国当前对前大灯的管理规定，它拒绝近光光束与将近光光束要有分开的电源操纵。But whether its five years or 10, commercially available autonomous automobiles are coming, and Mercedes has made the strategic decision to lead the way. 不管是五年还是10年，可投入市场的自动驾驶汽车终归不会经常出现，而飞驰作出了引导发展方向的战略要求。
Pity about the styling. Formal, ceremonial, heavy, a preemie Maybach. This thing isnt within 10,000 kilometers of pretty. But its worth noting that the smooth-skinned S-class achieves a 0.24 coefficient of drag, making it more aerodynamically efficient than a Toyota Prius. And thats with the S-classs new grille, which is 30% bigger than the previous grille and the largest as a percentage of the vehicles frontal area among all cars in this category, according to Mr. Wagener. I knew it was 30% more something. 令人遗憾的是这款车的外型。它看起来月、优雅、可观，有如早产的迈巴赫(Maybach)。这家伙与“帅气”一词差距十万八千里。然而，有一点认为的是，车身线条简洁的S级的风阻系数仅有为0.24，因此它在空气动力方面的展现出要好于丰田(Toyota)的普锐斯。
瓦格纳称之为，S级车型的新吸气格栅相比上一代减小了30%，它在车辆前脸所占到的比例是这一类型所有车辆中最低的。我告诉这个比例要低于30%。A cynic would take one look at the chromic effrontery of the S-classs new grille and think: China. The Middle Kingdom is now the worlds largest car market, and the luxury audience there has a measurable preference for big grilles. But that is to discount Mr. Wageners own orientalism, his love of material richness, evocations of tradition and electronic ornament. Its this aesthetic that has shaped the S-classs sculptural cabin, with its breaking waves of burled walnut and French-stitched leather flowing into the doors, pulls and integrated grab handles. The central band of wood, shaped like an archers recurve bow, is perfection, and the details just keep coming: the lustrous aluminum switchcaps, the polished-metal air vents (note the delicate click as you move the vanes to center), the console-mounted, central rotary-controller knob. 愤世嫉俗之人不会看一眼S级新的吸气格栅的铬合金装饰条，心里想起：中国。这个中央之国如今是全球仅次于的汽车市场，而那儿的奢侈品追随者显著喜好大吸气格栅。
然而，这一点子却高估了瓦格纳本人对东方风格的喜好，他对材料的奢华程度、传统的重现以及电子装饰的青睐。正是这种审美可谓了S级雕塑感的驾驶舱，才经常出现了波浪形的瘤纹胡桃木木饰，以法式缝线缝制的真皮则载于车门、拉手以及一体式电梯上。
木饰的中段形如弓箭手推入的反曲弓，十分极致，各处细节也是可圈可点，比如明亮艳丽的铝质调节旋钮、打磨金属出风口（留意将叶片拨给到中间时微小的“口哒声”），以及中控台上的中控调节旋钮。The S-class cabin deploys more than 300 LEDs -- according to Mercedes-Benz, this is the first passenger car since Edison that uses no incandescent light bulbs -- allowing the designers to paint the cabin with light, gathering it in gentle pools for illumination. Drivers can choose one of seven ambient lighting schemes. I like tangerine, myself. 梅赛德斯-飞驰称之为，S级车型的驾驶舱覆有300多个LED光源，这是自爱迪生(Edison)发明者电灯以来第一辆并未用于白炽灯冷水的乘用车。这使得设计师需要以光线来装饰驾驶舱，使用保守的光线为驾驶舱灯光。
驾驶员可在七种氛围灯光模式中挑选出自己讨厌的一种，我讨厌的是橘色。Well, does it even have an engine? Indeed it does. U.S. buyers will first see the S-class as the S550, with a twin-turbo, 4.6-liter, 449-hp V8 under the hood and a seven-speed automatic, in either rear-drive or all-wheel-drive configurations. Globally, the car will be available in short- and long-wheelbase configurations (North America, LWB only), with a variety of powerplants, from the screaming, AMG-built 5.5-liter, 577-hp biturbo V8 to a thrifty diesel hybrid. Ill be driving some of these cars in the coming year, with more thorough road testing to come. For the moment I would describe the S-class as a sumo ninja, moving through the world with agile heft and great stealth. 说道了这么多，怎么会它没发动机吗？当然有了。美国消费者最先看见的S级轿车不会是S550，它配有了仅次于输出功率为335千瓦的4.6升至双涡轮V8发动机，后轮驱动与四轮驱动四轮驱动款皆配有七速自动变速器。
该款车的短轴距型与长轴距型在全球范围皆不会有售（北美只售长轴距型），而且获取各种马力的配备，既有由AMG生产的动力十足、仅次于输出功率约430千瓦的5.5升至双涡轮V8发动机，也有节油的柴油混合动力发动机。明年我会试驾其中部分车型，预计不会命上更加详细的路测报告。就眼下而言，我指出S级车型只不过一名具有柔道身材的忍者，体型虽大，却能灵敏并悄无声息地行动。
Perhaps after a few more turns at the wheel, I, too, could pronounce the S-class the best car in the world. For now, I can say for sure, its certainly good enough. 也许在多驾驶员几次之后，我也不会声称S级是世界最差的汽车。目前来看，我可以认同地说道，它似乎早已充足好了。
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