Mercedes' China long-wheelbase E-Class now relies on ByteDance's model and Huawei's phone link, with quarterly software updates promised and more Mercedes models due to follow.
Mercedes-Benz began selling an updated long-wheelbase E-Class in China on November 2 with a cockpit built by its Chinese research team, TechNode reported, and the car’s virtual assistant now runs on Doubao, ByteDance’s large language model. Huawei HiCar has been added next to Apple CarPlay for phone connection. The three E 300 L versions cost RMB423,800, RMB466,800 and RMB509,800, Phoenix News reported, and IT Home said the starting price is RMB16,000 lower than before. Cover News said the E-Class is the first Mercedes model to carry the cockpit its China team developed.
The long-wheelbase E-Class is built for the Chinese market, and the update brings Doubao, already planned for the electric CLA, into a combustion-engine car. The software is a China build: TechNode’s Chinese-language report noted that the standard-wheelbase E-Class sold outside China keeps its original in-car system. Mercedes said the cockpit will receive a major over-the-air update every quarter and will spread to more of its combustion-engine and electric models, without naming them or giving dates.
The launch comes at a difficult moment. Mercedes-Benz’s China sales fell 31% year on year in the third quarter, and on October 27 the company cut its outlook, citing the deeper downturn there. The Irish Times reported the figures alongside the company’s quarterly results.
Mercedes’ China team rebuilt the assistant around Doubao
The update centers on the cockpit. With Doubao inside the virtual assistant, drivers can hold a natural-language conversation with the car and operate any button or text shown on the screen by voice, a feature Chinese carmakers call "say what you see". The assistant can also open and close third-party media apps and search for and pick audio and video content, Phoenix News reported.
Mercedes gave its own performance figures: the assistant wakes in as little as 0.25 seconds, and it locates and recognizes speakers in different seats with 98% accuracy. Voiceprint recognition tells family members apart, with up to six voiceprints per account, and the assistant keeps a memory of each person’s preferences and makes suggestions based on weather and time of day.
A scenario assistant lets owners build their own vehicle routines from 11 types of trigger and 15 types of action. A 3D model of the car on screen shows whether doors and windows are open and can be tapped to move windows and sunshades. Map dragging and zooming in Amap navigation now runs at 60 frames per second, TechNode’s Chinese edition reported. HiCar reconnects automatically after the first pairing, and the steering-wheel buttons work with Xiaoyi, the voice assistant on Huawei phones.
ByteDance has moved from in-car apps to the assistant itself
The relationship between Mercedes and ByteDance started small. In 2023 Mercedes began working with Volcano Engine, ByteDance’s cloud unit, and added an app bundling ByteDance services such as Douyin, Jinri Toutiao and Xigua. The two companies explored AI for cockpits in 2024, and on September 23, 2025, they signed a memorandum that extended the cooperation to assisted driving, Yicai Global reported. Oliver Thöne, the Mercedes board member responsible for China, said then that the companies would move toward collaboration across the full business chain.
Yicai reported then that the electric CLA would carry Doubao, which it said could recognize dialects and detect emotion. Putting the same model into the E-Class takes ByteDance’s software from a new electric model to an established gasoline sedan. Foreign carmakers have been turning to Chinese AI providers for China-market voice assistants: EastFrontier reported in July that Tesla replaced Grok with DeepSeek and ByteDance’s Doubao in its Chinese cars.
HiCar adds Huawei’s phone ecosystem to a car that previously offered Apple CarPlay for phone projection, so owners of either brand’s phones can now mirror apps on the dashboard.
Mercedes is betting on local software to steady its China business
The financial pressure behind the localization is large. Group revenue fell 4.5% to €30.7 billion in the third quarter, and adjusted earnings in the cars division more than halved to €560 million, with the margin narrowing to 2.5% from 4.8%, according to the Irish Times. Chief executive Ola Källenius said market conditions had become "even more challenging", particularly in China.
Mercedes’ answer is more local development and sourcing. It plans more than 40 new or refreshed models by the end of 2027, aims to cut material costs by about 8% from 2024 levels with steeper targets in China, and is adding China-specific long-wheelbase versions of models such as the electric GLC.
The first quarterly update, and the next Mercedes model to receive the cockpit, will show how quickly the China team can deliver. Mercedes’ fourth-quarter China sales will show whether buyers respond.