Guilt-free Luxury in the S400 Hybrid

MANILA, Philippines - You know that fate is smiling upon you when things fall into place even without you having to move heaven and earth to make things happen. On the third day of our Camarines Sur road trip with Mercedes-Benz, no less than CATS Motors president Felix Ang handed me over the keys to the S400 Hybrid, the only vehicle in the entire fleet that up to that time, Andy Leuterio had failed to drive. Without so much as lifting a finger, we’d have covered the entire fleet between the two of us. Talk about serendipity!

The third day, of course, was when we’d drive all the way back to Manila. Eight hours behind the wheel of a top-end variant hybrid? Who was I to complain? I grabbed the keys, stepped into the driver’s seat and pressed the Start/Stop button before Felix could even think of changing his mind.

The first thing that struck me upon taking my seat in the capacious sedan was its plush interiors. Acting as my co-pilot was the ever-affable Emy Arcillia, veteran media personality himself and CATS Motors’ own voice in recent years. Both Emy and I were immediately impressed by the S400’s ridiculously comfortable leather-clad seats. After fiddling with the concert-quality entertainment system, we were ready to speed off, but were already visibly enthralled. Felix, confident about his marquee’s capabilities, merely smiled and said, “You try driving it before you tell me how impressed you are.” After that, Felix initiated a sequence that has us viewing how the S400’s hybrid system worked as we took on the roads.

At 15kph or less, an ECO start/stop function detects when the vehicle is coming to a stop. It is at this point that the system shuts off the ample V6 engine, subsequently shutting down combustible fuel consumption. Squeeze on the throttle once more and the electric motor restarts the main engine. The moment you start hitting a rather lively pace, it once again brings the V6 back to life, providing you with enough power to take on highway-level speeds. The experience is so surreal, so amazing, that I felt I didn’t need to surrender driving duties at all!

One more thing, as you roll to a stop, you’ll notice via an easy to understand diagram in the car’s dashboard, how the system’s “recuperative function” powers the car’s electrical system. The S400 Hybrid’s electric motor acts as a generator and converts the rolling kinetic energy into electrical energy, storing this into the lithium-ion battery. By my computations, I was doing around 12kpl on a Merc the size of a whale. As I was trying to drive and decipher how I was saving the earth along the way, I felt that I was channeling my inner Al Gore – this particular truth, definitely not inconvenient.

My only complaint is the rather slushy brake pedal, which alarmed me at first with its lack of urgency, but which I got used to eventually. Were the S400 Hybrid armed with better brakes, I’d have found zero to complain about.

The S400 Hybrid is priced at a cool P10,200,000. But given the guilt-free driving experience and the way it completely engulfs one in luxury, I’d say moneyed folks who indulge themselves in this vehicle are going to swear it’s the best 10 million smackeroos they’d ever spent on a vehicle. Heck, I’d buy one if I could afford one – and my name isn’t even Al Gore.