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
2025 MB design boss: “Screens are not luxury.”
2026 MB: dash is screen.
Further proof MB is no longer luxury.
That IS pretty insane. I liked Saab cockpits back in the 90s. And I really loved my ’01 Jetta’s cool blue backlighting and bright red needles.
My ’17 Honda’s IP is adequate. Bland, but easy to read. Not distracting at all.
I rented a Hyundai Soul in Toronto years ago when they first came out that had customizable ambient lighting, and it was hilarious. Like being in a nightclub. But a surprisingly decent car, from when Hyundai was turning the corner from being utter crap.
I spend about twenty minutes on the touch screen of my Cooper SE to turn all the ambiant lights down.
I wish bad things onto the person responsible for this.
Well, not seriously bad things, like cancer or something. But certainly some minor inconvenience. Like spending 20 minutes in the line for coffee before being told there is no coffee. Or a pebble in their shoe that doesn’t come out the first time they take their shoe out.
Distracting technology like this only makes sense in the intended future where the steering wheel is replaced with an interactive tablet for a vehicle’s occupants to consume content and converse with AI through.
We need Saab now more than ever. They were way ahead of the curve with the Night Panel button.
I kind of liked the GLB when it first came out, mostly because it was a bit boxier and more practical looking than the swoopy GLA. Of course, by that point Mercedes had gotten so plasticy and crappy that I wouldn’t buy either one. I did drive my cousin’s wife’s first-gen GLB once and it was still quite small inside, but you sat up high and it was peppy enough, and if you didn’t look too closely, the interior bits seemed Mercedesish. Also, when it first came out, it was priced almost low enough to rationalize it despite it and the brand’s shortcomings.
Boy, Mercedes has leaned heavily into the strip club aesthetic.
All the German brands seem like that now: they all have colored lighted strips on the dash and flowing into the doors. Looks cheesy beyond words. I’m surprised the White House hasn’t received the same treatment yet to compliment all the gold-trimmed brick-a-brack garbage being hot-glued everywhere.
I don’t understand the appeal, and my office/gaming cave is awash in RGB unicorn barf. I want near zero distractions while driving. CarPlay is the exception, and that’s when I’m using navigation.
Do consumers really want all this lighting crap, or is this just a matter of automakers forcing crap on everyone?
I think its the showroom novelty
When I bought my TLX, it had ambient lighting strips lower on the dash and door cards, and they were customizable.
I think I fiddled through the settings a couple times the first 3 months I owned it, then just set it to red and left it that way the rest of the time.
These gimmicks get people interested but I get the feeling most don’t get touched after the newness wears off.
At night I crank the dash lights down and will adjust the side mirrors a bit to avoid glare and don’t even think of using your phone when you are my passenger, the last thing I would want is more interior light and I don’t care what colour it is
This looks like my personal hell. I like as little interior lighting as possible when driving at night. I really liked my old Leaf because you could turn off all lights, including the gauges. I genuinely don’t understand who would want this.