The current Mercedes-Benz GLB is an underrated little thing. Here’s a properly small crossover you can get with a third row that offers better passenger space than a Mitsubishi Outlander, fun turbo noises, and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. However, it’s also about due for a replacement, and Mercedes-Benz just teased it. While the full crossover hasn’t been revealed, Mercedes has given us plenty to talk about.
The new GLB seems like it’s going to get a controversial CLA-style front end, but we’re not going to talk about that. Partly because the exterior teaser photo shows the car absolutely covered in snow, so it’s hard to judge the styling accurately. Partly because there’s some absolute nonsense going on inside the new GLB that we need to discuss. It’s not the passenger screen, although that’s a solid contender for the most useless new gadget, considering passengers already have phones. Nope, it’s the ambient lighting treatment.
Looking back, it’s not hard to remember a time when ambient lighting was subtle. It might’ve been a tiny bulb or two illuminating the ignition switch so you knew where to stick the key in, or a lighted shift pattern serving up a subtle glow. This eventually evolved into little lights in the cup holders so transparent water bottles would glow, and the meanest of footwell-illuminating color-changing lights tucked way out of your field of view. Now, however, ambient lighting is everywhere, and Mercedes-Benz is employing it to a distracting level.
Earlier this year, I drove the Mercedes-AMG E 53 Hybrid 4MATIC+ Sedan, which is a mouthful but also a pretty good car. It’s astoundingly good on gas, it’s hilariously quick, it offers real plug-in range, but it also nearly blinded me. See, it has a strip of ambient lighting running across the top of the dashboard with output equivalent to a collapsed sun. Not a huge problem during the day, but at night, in the rain, on a dimly-lit controlled-access highway, it meant that I could barely see the road past the glow of ambience. Limping the thing to the next exit so I could pull over, dig through the infotainment, and turn down the ambient lighting was one of the sketchiest things I’ve done in a car. Considering I once removed the hood of an overheating Ford Crown Victoria and threw water on the actual engine every half-mile or so to limp it home, that’s saying a lot.
With the GLB being a less expensive model than the E-Class, you’d expect Mercedes-Benz to tone down the ambient lighting. Well, that’s not quite what’s happened here. Sure, from this angle, there doesn’t appear to be a huge strip of it atop the dashboard, but instead something with big glare potential is on display. That’s right, someone decided to put a bucketload of illuminated three-pointed stars in the moonroof, as if shining multicolor lighting from above and brightening up the cabin won’t make the road appear darker.
Why illuminate a panoramic moonroof, a thing that already has stars in it at night if you look up, regardless of vehicle make? You can blame BMW for originating this trend with its Panoramic SkyLounge illuminated moonroof, but at least the lighting on that is fairly dim. On the new GLB, the glow is bright even against the relative brightness of a cold-weather testing chamber. Oh, and that’s before we get into the rings around the vents and the lighting on the door cards and lower dashboard.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a bit of mood lighting in a bar or an apartment or what have you, but this seems excessive for something that’ll be travelling down the road at 70 MPH. On the bright side, you should be able to turn it off, or hopefully just avoid speccing the illuminated moonroof altogether. Someone definitely wants this, but, um, why?
Top graphic image: Mercedes-Benz
I’d rather have a 3rd gen S-class.. sadly I’d also need a bankruptcy attorney.
I am literally begging for the return of the Saab “night panel” button
Add just a bit of animation to that top image and I’ll think I’m Roger Wilco again.
This is the sad state of luxury German car brands nowadays: gimmicks galore. In the early days luxury meant overengineering, reliability and good materials.
Now behind all those massive screens and blinding lights is cost-cutting, critical failures and cheap, brittle plastic everywhere.
Manufacturers can get away with the UFO ambient lighting because 99% of people only drive on roads that have arguably too much illumination already, so you can’t even see your own headlights and therefore glare is not an issue. But like you said, I wonder how people who live in the middle of nowhere and no street lights manage to see anything out of a modern car that’s all screens inside.
I hate my BMW G30 digital cluster. Like any non-OLED panel, there’s backlight bleed so it’s never fully black and it’s incredibly distracting.
It’s because the Germans couldn’t (and still can’t) figure out China. Domestic Chinese cars have a lot of interior doodads and screens and whatnot, so the Germans think that’s all their own cars need to be competitive while completely ignoring the real reasons the Chinese domestics have succeeded.
How did a look that was only popular with people that loved gravity bongs and worked in food service become the defining interior characteristic of Mercedes?
Easy. When a GLB has a lower starting price than a Toyota Highlander.
“You can afford the lease payment, Bro!”
Next thing you know, they’re rolling up to Arby’s in one of deez GLBeez.
Bruno Sacco is rolling in his grave.
Probably while forced to wear a suit that is shimmering in LED-backlit 3-pointed stars.
I just saw my first Mercedes EQS (I think) with the all over micro star pattern wheels. I still can’t believe they’re for real.
Oh boy.
Something for current CLA owners looking to upgrade to use 15-year auto loans on.
Who does all this mood lighting appeal to? Genuine question, as I’m really curious what the market is for this.
Yeah…I was next to an MB sedan last night, and the purple surround lighting in the interior was shockingly bright and encompassing. Seemed really distracting, and I was outside of it even.
The 23-year old fourth owner who bought it at a Buy Here, Pay Here lot.
Extroverts who scream laugh with their friends in public 4 feet away from your face and the demented weirdos that leave overhead lights on in their houses.
There has been a long standing trend with Asian tuners to add ambient lighting along with lighting under cars. As mentioned below – the Chinese market is really big on screens and electronics inside cars.
China is the largest car market in the world and the largest market for Mercedes. China alone is 37%. Asia is 45% of Mercedes sales. The 21st century is the Asian century and their tastes are driving global trends.
(For comparison the USA is 16% of Mercedes global sales.)