Mercedes gets the 2017 E-Class on video

The first bits of official beauty roll showcasing the 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class are on the web, and we get to see three model trims in three colors – an unbadged matte silver, a red 220d, and a deep blue 350e Hybrid. But pretty cars aside, we get to see many of the new functions coming with Daimler’s bread-and-butter sedan, like wireless charging and the new steering wheel controls. There’s also a brief shot of the Remote Parking Pilot function, which can get the car into and out of parking spots using a smartphone.

The footage in the above video was cut from a massive chunk of B-roll, and you can check out a 25-minute video that spends a lot more time with all three cars and their interiors. One of the interesting scenes in the long vid is footage of the Remote Parking Pilot, which shows the actor spinning his finger around in a circle on his phone’s screen. It looks like that’s how you get the car to drive when you’re not in it, because the text on the phone reads, “Circular gestures move the vehicle.” We look forward to sampling it on our first drive.

And those Touch Controls on the steering wheel, which Mercedes makes note of being “like a smartphone interface,” were a feature of the Blackberry Bold phone for years – back when Blackberry smartphones weren’t basically extinct. We don’t know if there’s a corporate link there, but Blackberry is a partner of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team. You’ll find the short video above, the long one here.