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Mercedes-Benz

Hans-Dieter Multhaupt , development vice-president

"We don’t feel torque vectoring is worth it. It’s far too much action for far too few advantages in everyday driving. It might be good for a rally driver, who needs the final second on gravel. But it doesn’t give the normal driver anything in normal road conditions, if you do your job well otherwise.

"If you have too much weight in the front axle, perhaps you’d need some help of this kind, but the power consumption is significant – up to a kilowatt.

"You can also do torque vectoring by applying the brake. It takes power, but it doesn’t take constant power.

"It’s difficult to find technologies, which are cost-effective and really help the driver, but we never stop searching. Our active body control still has a lot of potential for the future. In suspension technology anything that saves energy and weight are very interesting for us.

"I don’t see very big potential for big leaps ahead in brake technology. We have carbon brakes, which are very expensive, clumsy and tend to be noisy. For about 20 years everybody has been talking about the electric brake. It seems to be a project that is for many years is shortly to break through, but it doesn’t come, somehow.

"The virtual part of the engineering can lead you up to 95 per cent within your target, but the last five per cent has to be worked out with craftsmanship in the testing, using engineers and test drivers who properly understand the fine adjustments such as the valve pressure characteristics of the steering aids, or minute adjustments to the elastic kinematics of your suspension and so on."

Hans-Dieter Multhaupt, development vice-president
Mercedes-Benz