2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class First Drive Review: Traditional Luxury Meets Hit-Or-Miss Tech

With the 2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Stuttgart's mid-size sedan enters its 11th generation with a thorough overhaul, injecting technology into the venerable luxury sedan to bring it firmly into the 2020s. The E450's turbocharged straight-six engine now comes complemented by a 48-volt mild hybrid system that improves both low-end grunt and fuel efficiency. Matching serious performance gains, the new gen’s chassis dynamics benefit further from Airmatic suspension and rear-wheel steering.

Meanwhile, the interior receives more techy gadgets—or gimmicks, depending on how you look at things—than ever before. Ambient light bars can now pulse to the beat of the music, a trio of massive screens lights up the entire cockpit (one of them happens to be 12.3 inches and placed in front of the passenger), and an optional dash-top camera offers video conferencing capability. The instrument screen can even display holographic maps for ADAS controls and navigation. 

Does such a seismic technological shift enhance or take away from the E-Class driving experience? Turns out, a little bit of both.

In total, the stately E450 now puts down 375 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque, the latter available as low as 1,800 rpm thanks to the silky smooth inline-six pushing 22 psi of turbo boost and the electric motor contributing 148 of those lb-ft. The E350, meanwhile, pairs the same e-motor to an inline-four to produce 255 hp and 295 lb-ft. Both employ a nine-speed automatic transmission.

The e-assisted torque results in a claimed zero-to-60-mph time of 4.4 seconds in the six-cylinder, a halt-tick improvement over the outgoing E450 that feels very legit in real-world driving. Nine whole gears and hybrid efficiency also contribute to a claimed 31 mpg on the highway (or 33 mpg with the E350). All the while, the hybrid system charges up and moves along imperceptibly—regenerative braking is barely noticeable while electric motors hum along with very little actual hum. In fact, if not for the gauge readouts and longer distances between fill-ups, most drivers might well forget the new E-Class is a hybrid in the first place.

Par for the new-version-of-a-luxury-car course, the E gains a few hundred