Detroit show: Mercedes teases future E-Class

MERCEDES-BENZ has celebrated Christmas and the New Year with more drip-fed information of its forthcoming E-Class replacement, and a teaser sketch that appears to hint at the luxury sedan's closely related CLS-Class sibling.

The first of two videos was released on Christmas day and provides an insight into the development of the 10th-generation model, including the 12 million kilometres of testing it conducted over 48 months in a variety of arduous environments.

No unadulterated views of the new car are offered, with all the featured vehicles in camouflage while testing on film, but a glimpse of its Multibeam LED headlights and a disguised prototype interior is provided.

The second of the videos emerged on New Year's day and opens with a tantalising flash of the new model's profile, before moving on to yet more sneak-peeks at the headlights, this time including a less obscured view of its nose.

The German car-maker completed a trio of festive season teasers with a sketch of what appears to be a CLS sedan/coupe replacement released on its social media pages.

With a two-bar grille and large central three-point badge, the mysterious car wears a similar front-end look to those already adopted by other production Mercedes such as the C-Class and AMG-GT, but its more coupe behind suggests the concept is a CLS successor.

Following Mercedes' more logical and family-specific nomenclature reshuffle, the new version is likely to roll out wearing a CLE boot badge.

According to Mercedes, the design of the unnamed car “perfectly embodies the philosophy of Sensual Purity,” but no detailed information regarding its future is provided.

Late last year, the company revealed a first look at the E-Class interior, but a full exterior view will not be possible until the car's official unveiling on January 11.

As previously reported, the next-generation E-Class will build on the company's advances in autonomous driving, but the most recent video confirms the new model will be able to change freeway lanes without driver intervention.

That technology will join the now more customary autonomous technologies such as city braking and pedestrian recognition, and adaptive cruise control that operates from freeway speeds down to stop and start traffic.

When it arrives, the replacement E-Class will go head to head with strong rivals in the form of the BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 and Jaguar XF, all of which have been updated more recently than the Mercedes large luxury sedan contender.

Despite being the oldest in its class, the E-Class continues to lead the segment on Australian turf with 1153 examples registered to the end of November last year, compared with 946 for the BMW, 486 for the Jaguar and the Audi with 476.