The design chief of Mercedes-Benz has publicly criticised the brand’s German rivals, following the reveals of the BMW iX3 and Audi Concept C at the Munich motor show this week.
In a rare public sledging, Mercedes-Benz design boss Gorden Wagener hit out at the interiors shown by BMW and Audi while speaking to UK magazine Top Gear.
“I was working for the Volkswagen Group until 1997, then I went to Mercedes,” Mr Wagener told the publication.
“That interior [of the Audi Concept C] looks like it was designed in 1995. It is a little bit too known, and there is too little tech,” he said, pointing out the lack of large screens in the cabin.
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ABOVE: Audi Concept C
“I have always claimed that I am a big fan of hyper-analogue things, but you cannot ignore a screen. When you have a small screen, you automatically send the message ‘congratulations, you are sitting in a small car’.”
Mr Wagener went on to explain that all new cars need large screens now, saying manufacturers can no longer get away with just buttons.
“But for a mainstream solution, going back to all switches will not work.”
Falling short of naming BMW directly, Mr Wagener then went on to criticise the new-generation iX3 – declaring he wasn’t a fan of its large screen.
ABOVE: BMW iX3
“What the other manufacturer did? I mean, they showed the concept a couple of years ago with the information across the bottom of the windscreen,” Mr Wagener told Top Gear, referring to BMW’s 43.3-inch Panoramic iDrive display which stretches across the bottom of the windscreen.
“I have to say I’m not a big fan of that because it’s so far away it’s hard to read. Everything will appear smaller so it’s distracting, and you need a device to operate it because it’s too far away to be touch-sensitive, so you have to put a touchscreen in there – which they did,” he added, referencing the 17.9-inch infotainment touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard.
“So it’s a pretty conventional solution, and actually a complicated one because you have information on different levels and I don’t think that’s intuitive.
“I mean, they think it’s progressive and they must love it otherwise they wouldn’t have done it, but I’m not convinced by it.”
The rebuke is unusual in the automotive industry, with senior company spokespeople tending to talk up their own products rather than putting others down.
However, Mr Wagener has also been criticising efforts within his own company to utilise artificial intelligence (AI) for designing new cars.
“It doesn’t create good results,” the design boss told media at the Munich motor show, including US website Jalopnik.
“It creates 99 per cent of sh-t solutions that are really ugly or weird or are not brand-specific. And yeah, one per cent interesting stuff.”
But it wasn’t just AI design from Mercedes-Benz that Mr Wagener had a problem with.
“I go through [Instagram], and it’s just… another one. You get bored, you know? You just see it [everywhere],” he said.
“This AI stuff is getting really annoying.”
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