If you know anything about building your own computer, you’ll know there’s an entire industry dedicated to integrating bright (but useless) customizable RGB (red, green, blue) LED lights into the bodies of PCs. These lights, usually found in strips, can emit virtually any color you can think of, which can make for a fantastical, over-the-top, rainbow-drenched experience every time you power up your desktop.
Automakers have been using color-changing LEDs for ambient lighting in their interiors for years now. The Kia Soul was among the first cars to popularize the tech, with later generations featuring multi-colored lights around the speakers that flashed along with the music. Eventually, luxury automakers caught on, with companies like BMW and Mercedes-Benz integrating customizable ambient lighting into much of their respective lineups.
Mercedes just revealed the interior for its upcoming AMG four-door sedan, and it is absolutely stuffed to the brim with LED interior lighting, from the buttons to the cup holders, to the doors, to the steering wheel, to even the glass roof. For some, this might feel like overkill. But for people who build their own PCs, they’ll feel right at home.
Yes, Even The Glass Can Change Color
Mercedes-Benz is on the cusp of revealing its all-electric performance sedan, meant to replace the current AMG GT 4-Door Coupe. Instead of revealing the whole car at once, it’s releasing photos of the interior now, with plans to show off the car’s exterior at a later date. Think of it as a limited series on Netflix, where a new episode is released every week, instead of the whole season dropping at once.
Some parts of the new AMG GT 4-Door’s interior are typical sporty Mercedes, like the multiple large screens, contrasting stitched leather, and copious carbon fiber trim pieces. In its press release, the company makes a big deal about the dashboard being oriented towards the driver, with the 14-inch infotainment screen being angled to the left, separated on the dash by a strangely charming piece of accordion-shaped trim.
Looking at the photos, though, it’s hard not to be consumed by all of the bright red lighting coming from every orifice of the cabin. There’s a red glow coming from underneath the screens, from behind the door armrests, from around the air vents, from the two phone charging pads, and even from the three rotary buttons on the center console. Those dials, according to Mercedes, control electric motor response, cornering behavior, and traction intervention levels, respectively.
All of these lights are completely customizable, according to Mercedes. From the release:
High-resolution ambient styles can be selected as mood-enhancing background motifs for the displays. The color scheme of the instrument cluster, controls and ambient lighting are perfectly matched to these motifs. This allows customers to create their own personal atmosphere in the vehicle. The display design impresses with its exceptional aesthetics, precision and intuitive operation.
Check the right option boxes, and the panoramic glass roof can also be customized with different light colors in the shape of AMG emblems that hover like crowns over the front occupants’ heads:
At night, the panoramic glass roof can be transformed into a sparkling canvas with an available unique lighting display. Illuminated AMG emblems above the driver and front passenger’s heads and motorsport-inspired racing stripes across the entire roof surface shine in colors that match the interior ambient lighting.
I’m not hating on this stuff, to be clear. I’m all for more customization in vehicles, as it allows people to choose their own atmosphere and curate their personal vibe, depending on their mood, what they’re doing, or where they’re going.
I Forgot My Car Even Had This Feature
Still, all these bright lights leave me wondering: Does anyone actually adjust their ambient lighting? I understand that some cars change their interior lighting depending on drive mode, but that happens automatically. How often do people actually go into the menu to play around with different color schemes, really?
I ask because I owned a car with adjustable ambient lighting for three years, and after the first month of ownership, I totally forgot about it. My Ford Fiesta ST had a button on the dashboard that shuffled through five or six different colors for lights mounted on the dashboard and in the footwells. I played around with it after I bought the car, set it to a color I liked, and then didn’t touch it for years. I have to imagine many owners of other cars with this feature had the same experience.
On the flip side, I could see someone changing their LEDs to fit their mood constantly, especially if they have a car with this many lights to customize. Having different colors on the Fiesta was fun, but it was admittedly not very flashy, since the lights themselves were pretty dim. My gut feeling, though, is that this is more of a gimmick for salespeople to use on prospective customers at dealerships, only for those customers to play with it once or twice, then forget about it, as I did.
I’d like to hear it from you: Do you own, or have you ever owned, a car with customizable LED ambient interior lighting? If so, do you, or did you ever actually change the colors?
Top graphic image: Mercedes-Benz
superfluous complexity is something i excise from my life
My GTI and now my R have all sorts of ambient lights. I change them with the season – orange for spooky season, green/red for christmas, light green for spring and blues most of the rest of the time. Just a silly little thing to do that brings a little joy.
My Mini has ambient lighting in about 8 colors or so (never counted). I change it about once or twice a year when I’m bored at a stop light at night.
I sincerely do not understand Mercedes Benz design language turning into “Vape Shop”
You think its bad now… just wait until you see the Mansory edition.
Nice top shot. Here’s hoping that the “driver” doesn’t stop working! (Electrical joke)
The emblems on the panoramic roof give me the vibes of SEELE from Neon Genesis Evangelion. So if you feel like larping as Gendo Ikari, or like the aesthetic of a weird death cult hellbent on uniting everyone into one shared consciousness, then I think it’s a required check mark on the order sheet.
It may be great, but it looks like it belongs in one of those places where my daughter buys a plastic card full of “credits” with my money and wastes them on price-is-right wheels and claw machines. It is seriously lit up like a modern toy. A plaything. I bet it makes slot machine noises, too. I do not want.
Two, actually. My ’13 Soul had the speaker lights. I left them on red for the 11+ years I had the car. The dearly-departed ’24 Kia Forte GT had ambient lighting that changed based on drive mode… white for normal, red for sport, blue for “smart”.
My current ’24 Integra doesn’t have changeable ambient lighting at all. Everything is lit in white all the time, except the outer perimeter of the “gauges” of the digital display where the color changes based on drive mode. When I found out that I didn’t have a choice of a million ambient lighting hues, I didn’t care whatsoever.
Mercedes has pretty much just decided that “taste” and “restraint” are outdated concepts they don’t want to bother with anymore. The interior of this thing looks like a nice place to drop ecstasy and listen to some music, but maybe not so much to drive.
Like most new stuff from MB, its pretty hideous.
My TLX had the ambient lighting you could change. I think I messed with it a lot the first month, then maybe changed it twice a year after that.
Sadly, I have stupid RGB LEDs all over the inside of my PC, because it was cheaper than one without stupid LEDs. One day, I’ll get round to disabling them. I couldn’t imagine the horror of owning a car that did that. Eurgh.
My wife has used some gaming mouse for work for years and I find it very funny
Thing is, I bet it’s actually a really good mouse; it just looks stupid.
Do you need to pay a subscription to turn this on, or to turn it off?
I think you’ve hit upon the only situation where paying for a subscription makes sense! To turn all that crap OFF! 😀
No, and I wouldn’t.
AMG (and Mercedes Benz too for that matter) used to mean something. Now every new ‘performance’ oriented Benz looks like a Latvian bordello.
Also, not all PC builders smear their work with all that LED stuff.
Was gonna say, I can’t be the only person that goes out of their way to get hardware without RGB.
Sillyness, do not want. My ’14 Mercedes wagon has a touch of ambient lighting across the dash and doors. I don’t hate it, but it’s pretty pointless too. Mine just has three color temps of white. I keep it on warm white at it’s dimmest setting.
But I also have ALL of the RGB in my beast PC turned completely off, and think the high point of car interiors was ’80s BMWs in no-nonsense white on flat black minimalism. Anything more than that is just a distraction from the task at hand. The only ambient lighting in those was the tiny light shining down on the center console/shifter area, and I do really like that feature. It’s useful but not distracting. Both of my ’11 BMWs have that. They were really the last of the no-BS BMW interiors, at least if you passed on the iDrive nonsense.
Vomits in RGB. Don’t own and will not own a car with ambient lighting, ever!
One of my GPU has rgb lighting. Hate it but had not choice as all the cards available came with it default.
My car has minimal ambient, just the cupholders, armrests, and footwells, and only white. But it adjustable in intensity. And it is set to zero. Am I supposed to be looking at my feet while I’m driving? Am I going to misplace my cupholder or armrest?
I’m imagining that deadpan character the used in the Simpsons as you drop your cup into what used to be the transmission tunnel but is now just a hole directly to the outside
https://youtu.be/9GyLUT7l_Ys?t=17&si=CvYbrQ9Yn4w9v9bf
Thanks, AMG. Yeah, that wouldn’t be distracting, not one bit.
I have always wanted the look of floor mats on the ceiling.
And y’all were upset at the 190E yesterday. Woof.
Panem et circenses
This looks so bad, like a Chinese-designed “custom” pc on NewEgg. Mercedes-Benz loves its ambient lighting, I guess, to distract you from the fact that they always sound like they are about to blow up. BMW guy over here, have to throw a jab sometimes, mirite?
I change mine with the seasons. For the dark winter drive home, I like the warm colors of a summer sunset in the car. For summer nights, I like cooler colors like greens and blues. It helps the mood a bit.
I rather like indirect ambient lighting. I owned a 2021 Sonata which had such, and I’d set it to reds/purples in the winter and blue/white in the summer depending on mood. It was nice.
The stuff in modern Mercedes leaps far across the chasm to Mt. Tacky, though. I thought Germans were supposed to be staid?
I now drive a 2024 XC60, which has taste so good it borders on the imperceptible, and certainly no colored lights.
Mercedes really jumped the shark when they introduced those incredibly tacky illuminated grill stars, so that you can announce to the world as loudly as possible that you bought a Mercedes. Sad.
i actually really enjoy the ambient lighting in my GTI, i leave it on red. i actually like it in most cars.
but this? this is giving Rio Las Vegas
I’m playing with this probably once or twice. I’m pulling a tongue in cheek Lower Decks style Captain Riker and setting it all to red and barking out RED ALERT! SHIELDS UP! Checks later, still red. Be sure to note that we are still at RED ALERT! Otherwise had a Hyundai Tucson with this for a couple years. Had it set to purple cause why not?
I usually set mine to red, because the car’s interior was red. Anything else (other that white) just felt like it was too much clash.
I observed a new C or E Class up close the other day and the thing is just dripping with gimmicks. Star pattern in the grill. Star logo in the brake lights. Lit up big star on the front. The interior “rave lighting”.
I guess when you don’t do quality, driving dynamics, price, or anything else particularly better than anyone else, you do this?
I could see doing this in the bottom rung A-Class, GLB models, but the six figure models?
Too many of the people who buy the six-figure ones are doing it to loudly shout that they can, not because they appreciate the car. So making it as loud and tacky as possible sells. Seriously – what other possible reason is there to buy something as utterly STUPID in every way as an AMG G-wagen?? A vehicle that can’t go offroad and is utterly horrible ON a road too? But everybody knows they are expensive as hell and they are instantly recognizable.