For a second year running, an electric car wins the nation’s top motoring prize.

Lance Bennett, general manager of Mercedes Benz Cars New Zealand, with the 2020 New Zealand Car of the Year, represented by the Peter Greenslade Trophy, and the EQC.

NEW Zealand Car of the Year 2020 is the Mercedes EQC, the big premium sports utility becoming the third electric vehicle to take this annual accolade.

An award that is in its 33rd year first took an electric turn in 2015, with the BMW i3 being recognised.

Last year the title went to the Jaguar i-Pace, which also operates wholly off the mains.

That run means three of the six most recent winners, including today’s, have been electric.

Richard Edwards, president of the New Zealand Motoring Writers’ Guild, the organisation behind New Zealand Car of the Year, says the recognition for the $142,000 Mercedes sends a strong signal about electrification’s place in the future for motoring in New Zealand.

Though all the electric cars to so far gain this recognition have come from premium makes and two sell in the $100,000-plus executive sector, he contends the EQC’s placement is an example of how, in some segments, electric vehicles are nearing price parity with their petrol and diesel counterparts.

“If you look at where the EQC fits into the broader Mercedes-Benz range on size, specification and performance, its price is not out of place at all.”

He also anticipates many more electrified vehicles to follow it as New Zealand Car of the Year and notes that this year’s announcement follows a watershed time, with the Government announcing a ‘Climate Emergency’ and pushing for an increasing uptake of electrified vehicles, including in its own fleets.

The award was decided by a voting process involving two dozen Guild members who actively road test vehicles, with 10 cars making the final cut for consideration.

The others were the Ford Fiesta, Toyota Yaris , Audi Q3, Kia Seltos, Land Rover Defender, Mazda CX-30, Mercedes-Benz GLB, Peugeot 2008 and Skoda Kamiq.

We ask Mercedes Benz to give insight into how much of a smarty pants its S-Class will be in local spec.

HOW clever will Mercedes’ smartest car turn out to be in New Zealand conditions?

The new S-Class, the most advanced car the world’s oldest vehicle maker has ever placed into series production, is not set to land for another eight months. Yet assuredly it’s already a question the brand’s distributor is already giving thought to.

The news could be good – while loath to lock into any particular commitments, Mercedes Benz New Zealand is expressing confidence about delivering a smart product in every sense.

That potentially means a huge wow factor. This technology trendsetter is engineered to achieve big feats and has been loaded with many more gadgets and a lot of extra computing power than has gone into any previous model. or any other Mercedes production car.

Still, no promises yet, for good reason. In as much as initial international media attention and brand spruiking of the past few weeks has left impression the sky is the limit here, the reality is that for all the drum-banging, there’s no certainty every whizzo feature will be an immediate or even certain a starter in our world.

First, and most importantly, Mercedes itself has to decide which functions are relevant in which markets. Distributors do not have open slather; even factory shops cannot simply tick every box. The maker has to analyse and decide. That’s a historic practice that potentially becomes all the more relevant now, with a car in which some features are so advanced that there’s no regulation in some places to guide their usage.

The good news for New Zealand is that there’s little red tape to impinge here. We have remarkably few regulations that might conceivably restrict advanced tech – in theory, if a fully autonomous car were to turn up tomorrow (and don’t get excited - it won’t), there are no rules to keep it from operating.

However, there’s also a catch. To the Germans, New Zealand and Australia are considered one and the same. For expediency the product choices are common, whatever we take also has to suit our neighbour and since they are the bigger and more important market, their decisions become ours to live with.

Unfortunately, their determinations are not just down to taste but also having to abide by Australian Design Rules. Drawn up to protect a domestic car-marking industry that patently no longer exists, ADR nonetheless still impinges heavily over there and so, by proxy, impacts over here too.

ADR is a hefty rulebook containing thousands of fish hooks, some of which can catch out a maker for what would outwardly seem the most bizarre reasons. Aussie has signed for the S-Class and it would seem highly unlikely the world’s smartest car won’t sail through ADR without hindrance.

And, yes, that ‘smart drive’ portrayal is apt: On computing power alone, the S-Class makes others look dumb. The MBUX (Mercedes-Benz User Interface) alone is 50 percent more powerful than the system found in present product because it will operate up to five screens in this car.

The main one is a 12.8-inch portrait screen on the centre console, with haptic touch feedback and changeable OLED technology. It’s where you’ll access the majority of controls and functions, so 27 buttons have been removed as a result, and adds over-the-air update functionality to the S-Class for the first time.

Today’s story highlights some of the head-line features. MB NZ boss Lance Bennett was happy to share his thoughts about each one and the chances of local utilisation.

We started off by asking about the new Drive Pilot system. The big story is that it can drive itself more often thanks to adoption of ‘level 3’ semi-autonomous driving - meaning ‘hands-off’ autonomous driving on motorways and in traffic where legally permitted.

We already known Benz plans a staged introduction of the new system, which uses lidar among other sensors, and every suggestion is that export markets won’t get to use it until sometime after it is activated in Germany. And that’s not set to occur until at least mid-2021.

But are we in with a chance? Sorry nerds, Bennett isn’t going to commit, telling us only that: “ This feature will only be available in Germany once launched. At this stage, we cannot confirm which markets will be next.”

What about engine choices? Obviously there are still purely fossil-fuelled choices and we know the first derivative here will be one of those, being the six-cylinder petrol S450.

But we’re hearing about a petrol-electric plug-in hybrid drivetrain. The new S580e promises an electric range of just over 100kms on the WLTP test cycle – so, more than double the range of its predecessor – sounds good.

Good news. Bennett concurs. “Yes we will be looking to bring the PHEV S-Class variant to New Zealand, we cannot confirm timing at this stage.”

As for other engine choices? “We cannot confirm which models will launch following the initial confirmed S 450 variant, but will be considering all AMG S-Class variants for NZ.”

(BTW, a full blown electric S-Class isn’t coming. But an equivalent will be, being the EQ-S, the top dog of the standalone EQ electric vehicle family).

There are plenty of other smarts announced for the flagship sedan that, in its seventh generation, takes inspirations from upmarket home interior design and luxury yachts.

The instrument panel is a step up from the already class-leading display now common to all Benz cars, in that it delivers a 3-D effect that manifests itself when the driver looks at the dashboard. Say what? No, seriously: 3-D and without the need for special glasses. And yes, it can be deactivated if that seems a bit too weird.

So, can we get it? Says Bennett: “(It) will be available to our market and we will confirm if standard closer to our local launch.”

In respect to visual projection, there’s more. A giant alternate version of the standard head-up display can now project augmented reality content onto the road ahead of you. Animated arrows that show you exactly where to turn and real-time information about the distance from cars ahead, overlaid directly on the real-world objects—among other nifty animations.

The extravagant version of the now digital headlights also gets in on that idea. It has powerful LEDs that are capable of projecting warning symbols and lane markings onto the road ahead. And these will be high res, highly detailed motifs. The lights can display 2.6 million pixals. According to Benz research and development boss Markus Schafer: “You could play a movie in your garage with resolution.”

Again, stupefying. And for us? “(It) will be available to our market and we will confirm if standard closer to our local launch.” So that’s not an outright no, then.

The same response goes for the following:

Interior Assist, which can recognise physical movements and enable selected vehicle functions - such as the passenger seat light illuminating if you reach over to pick something up from the seat. The dash display, climate and stereo preferences are also customised. To access your profile a driver "logs in" using facial recognition, voice recognition, a fingerprint sensor or a PIN.

The ‘energising’ system that puffs out nice aromas from an in-built perfumer has new scents - “Bamboo Mood” and “Cotton Mood” have been highlighted. The active comfort features are upgraded. It’s also now capable of adjusting the lighting, seating and air conditioning and is compatible with some smartwatches and phones. The system will measure your stress levels and adjust settings accordingly. Also, if the S-Class senses you're drowsy, it'll run an environment programme to wake you up, using lighting and those scents.

The ‘4-D’ Burmester audio system that uses 30 speakers and eight resonators – aka bass vibrators - to produce the sound experience. Mercedes puts two of the latter in the back of each seat, and they reproduce the “sound resonance” for even more “tangible” listening. The intensity of the resonators can be individually adjusted for each seat, in case your passengers aren’t feeling up to experiencing sound in the fourth dimension.

The new parking camera. Instead of the usual bird's-eye view, the S-Class’s shows a chase-cam view, as if the car were being followed by its own personal drone. Swipe the screen and you can fly your view around the car, with quick, smooth animation.

Also, in respect to parking, it gets remote parking functionality, meaning the car can park itself or be summoned from a short distance via a smartphone.

Getting into parking spots will be even easier thanks to a new four-wheel steering system. At AMG level, the system is tuned for performance, with a 4.5-degree maximum steering angle on the rear axle, whereas less performance-oriented editions - called Executive Line cars - have a 10-degree steering system that reduces the turning circle to that of Benz’s smallest family car, the A-Class.

For us? “Will be available to our …” Etc, etc. You know the rest.

Same goes for E-Active Body Control suspension, which is surely going to be popular. It operates just like the system does on the GLE and GLS sports utilities, individually regulating the damping and spring forces at each wheel.

It includes adaptive dampers that work in tandem with processors and sensors located around the car. The system can monitor the road surface 1000 times a second and continually adapt the Airmatic air suspension.

This is primarily, but not totally, to ensure a plush ride. Mercedes says the level of adjustability certainly allows the car to be regally comfortable on poor surfaces, but stiff enough to hustle you so choose; as on the SUVs it can even lean the car into corners to help minimise body roll.

There’s a safety benefit, too: As an ingredient of the Pre-Safe safety suite, it will automatically raise the suspension by up to 80mm if the car is about to get T-boned, the idea being to put the side sill (which is stronger than the doors) in the path of the incoming car. There’s also a new central airbag that deploys to reduce the risk of a clash of heads in an accident.

Finally, with the market shifting so rapidly to SUVs, it almost seems like an anachronism that the S-Class, rather than the GLS-Class is still Mercedes' flagship. So, what’s the volume expectation for the sedan?

Says Bennett: “For now, we see them as two very different customers, historically, more than half of the current customers see no alternative to the S-Class.

“This means, an S-Class customer does not even consider buying a different model which is very different when compared to the rest of our range.”

As for when the GLS might begin to adopt the same features as the kingpin car?

Sorry, nothing to report on that one.