It was a rare spectacle: a Mercedes-Benz electronics vice president explaining that the carmaker had already removed 600 electronic functions from its cars and that the process continues.
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In a 20-minute address at an innovation symposium, Stephan Wolfsried railed against overloading the car with electronic functions that have no use for the customer.
“Last year we removed over 600 functions from our cars – functions that no one really needed and no one knew how to use,” Wolfsried said, according to Automotive News Europe.
Because of failing integration into the overall electronics infrastructure, they only tend to cause the malfunctioning of really important electronic parts, he said.
Wolfsried, who is vice president at Mercedes-Benz for electrical and electronics and chassis development and reengineering, spoke on the subject at a delicate time for the DaimlerChrysler car division.
In May, Mercedes had to recall more than 650,000 cars worldwide because of a possible malfunctioning of the new electronic brake system created jointly with Robert Bosch. Moreover, parent DaimlerChrysler’s global strategy came under review following a decision to provide no further funding for minority-owned Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi Motors.
