Chief Design Officer of Mercedes-Benz Charts Company's Vision for the Future
*By Amanda Weston*
Even as Mercedes-Benz unveils its latest models to the public at the L.A. Auto Show on Friday, designers at the company will be thinking much further ahead ー to the future of the auto industry.
"There is, in fact, a different time zone in our design departments," Gorden Wagener, chief design officer at Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, told Cheddar from the show's floor. "We're living like five to 15 years ahead in the future when you think about architecture and new cars."
As journalists explored the new limited edition AMG GT R Pro, Wagener explained the brand's philosophy of designing "something very emotional, beautiful, on one hand and something cool and rational on the other hand."
"It's always important to get this philosophy and bring it into the future and we have the opportunity that we have four brands: from Mercedes AMG as a performance luxury brand; Mercedes Maybach as an ultimate luxury brand; Mercedes-Benz representing the modern luxury; and then our new Mercedes EQ brand, the tech brand for the electric cars for the progressive luxury of the future," Wagener said.
"And that helps us to target different customers, to target different competitors, and basically do a whole range of different designs for the future."
While most of the company's plans for the future remain confidential, Wagener did reveal it is following a major trend in the auto industry: electric.
"There will be a big thing in electric," Wagener said. "We will launch a lot of electric vehicles."
Wagener said the company also remains excited about developing its Mercedes AMG sports car brand, most recently with its update of the GT family.
The two-door AMG GT Coupes and Roadsters will have the AMG DYNAMICS integrated driving control system and a new AMG Performance steering wheel.
Mercedes-Benz said the AMG GT R PRO was modified to "deliver even more racetrack performance" with a lightweight construction and new suspension.
The L.A. Auto Show officially begins Friday and runs through Dec. 9.
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
