Mercedes admits "Electronics Overkill"

[dave 2]

"A great many of the improvements which have been made in vehicle technology over the past decade or so have been down to electronic development, but it's possible to have a nagging suspicion that the manufacturers are overdoing it.

The manufacturers are beginning to think along similar lines - or at least Mercedes-Benz is. Its electronics vice-president Stephan Wolfsried has admitted that "last year we removed over 600 functions from our cars - functions that no one really needed and no one knew how to use."

He added that failures in integrating these parts into the overall electronics structure meant that all they were doing was causing malfunctioning of more important items.

The most recent problem Mercedes experienced in this area led to a recall of 650,000 cars world-wide last month, due to possible malfunctioning of a new electronic braking system developed in conjunction with Robert Bosch."

Finally somebody admits to it, nobody needs or ever uses all those useless toys that only cause problems instead of increase convenience. Most car manufacturers are obviously in some sort of electronics gadgetry war right now, competing against each other to find out who can release more useless bullsh*t in a shorter period of time.

[shadowninja 0]

Yeah, over a third of the price of a new Mercedes is for the electronics.

(and another third is for the little three pointed star on the front).