Mercedes And Will.i.am's Bizarre Car Instrument Gives A New Meaning To Traffic Jam
Mercedes-Benz wants your car to also be a musical instrument, and it has turned to artist will.i.am to make that happen at CES 2024. MBUX Sound Drive promises to take your experience from behind the wheel, and convert that into a unique song or audio soundscape. Down the line, though, Mercedes is hoping that it'll also become a collaborative music platform.
It's not will.i.am and Mercedes' first encounter, mind. The Mercedes Flip, unveiled in early 2022, was a one-off coupe developed by the rapper, automaker, and West Coast Customs, that made its debut at the Formula 1 Grand Prix USA in Miami. Based on a 2023 Mercedes AMG GT, the concept — complete with a new logo combining the three-pointed star with a bear's face — had a love-it-or-hate-it fascia inspired by the G-Class SUV, and rear-hinged doors.
MBUX Sound Drive, in comparison, seems fairly normal. In fact, we've seen Mercedes look to dynamically-generated audio in vehicles before: The electronic warbling audible to those inside of the automaker's EVs, for example, is generated on-the-fly, based on how the car is being driven.
Not just a strange tech concept
That system, though, basically adds an electrified backdrop to the driving experience, replacing the absent sounds of an internal combustion engine. MBUX Sound Drive, in contrast, goes far more in-depth — with the audio it creates intended to stand out rather than hum in the background.
By collating driving dynamics data from the vehicle's various sensors, and feeding that into the music software running on the MBUX infotainment platform, a unique track can be created. Factors including acceleration, braking, steering, and electric recuperation in Mercedes EVs will all be taken into account. These vehicle functions are then converted into "musical expressions," which the driver will be able to "compose" with as they commute.
What stands out here is that Mercedes isn't just bringing this technology to CES 2024 as a quirky demo. Far from that: It plans to roll out MBUX Sound Drive globally in mid-2024 for existing owners of Mercedes-Benz or Mercedes-AMG cars running the second-generation MBUX system.
Beyond that, Mercedes says the plan is to create an "open music platform" based on audio generated with MBUX Sound Drive. That, the automaker suggests, will result in new songs across multiple genres, released in a newly-created immersive audio format from the MBUX Sound Drive studio software.
From behind the wheel, it's surprisingly fun
It'd be easy to dismiss MBUX Sound Drive as a gimmick, especially if the automaker trend of adding strange, artificial engine noises to EVs hasn't particularly impressed you. I'm on record as disliking the borderline-ominous sound that the AMG EQS Sedan pipes into the cabin, and frankly I expected this new, more complex iteration to be more of the same. Instead, a brief spin at the wheel of an electric Mercedes SUV proved surprisingly refreshing.
Although it starts off from a standstill as a faint, electronic burble, it's when the car gets going that things get interesting. Gentle acceleration added pads and synth sounds; hitting the accelerator with more urgency loaded up a stronger bassline. Slowing — either simply by lifting off the pedal again, or hitting the brake — added reverb and delay.
No, the end result probably wasn't going to go platinum in the charts, but it was definitely more "musical" than I've heard an EV manage for its in-cabin sound. More importantly, it was actually enjoyable to play with (even if the people driving behind me likely weren't impressed by my slowing to 10 mph to coax out some more throbbing beats). While you might be encouraged into driving in ways that add particularly musical elements, Mercedes tells me that MBUX takes into account the current speed limit of the road: going faster won't make the generated song any more frenetic.
Overall, though I'm not sure any Mercedes-AMG owner is going to turn into a bestselling artist and producer from MBUX Sound Drive, it's not quite the passing oddity that I thought it would be. I might even be inclined to take a slightly longer route home, if the beats are properly flowing.