2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class

To take you behind the curtain for a moment, our 2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class first drive review was produced quite atypically. Instead of traveling someplace to drive the car for the first time (aka "a press trip,"), the car was sent out to various outlets/journalists along with a wonderfully extensive press kit and a virtual Webex presentation. This is actually how first drives were done during the pandemic, and while the Webex presentation bit is just as useless and loathsome as in those dark days (asking the necessary in-depth questions to various experts is basically impossible), there is certainly merit to having the car in question for several days at home instead of several hours in suburban San Diego or Majorca.  One of those merits is that I get to do a luggage test of the car in question! There it is, that's what all that has to do with a luggage test. And as it turns out, doing a luggage test is kind of important because the all-new E-Class has a cargo volume number that'll raise a Spockian eyebrow.  According to the specs, the new E-Class sedan has 19 cubic-feet of space in the trunk. I'm pretty sure that would give it the largest trunk of any traditional notchback sedan currently on sale. The last car I can recall in that territory was a Ford Taurus. The sedan with the most voluminous trunk I've luggage tested is the Honda Accord's, both on-paper and while-testing.  Here's the new E-Class. So, this is definitely better than the typical luxury sedan trunk, but 19 cubic-feet?  Another journalist in that aforementioned virtual press presentation actually asked about the cargo volume spec and the measurement used to attain it, and the Mercedes rep simply said it was "comparable to filling the trunk with ping pong balls." I would've had follow-up questions to that (Mr. Luggage Test, after all), but there's a reasons virtual press presentation are crap.  Thankfully, though, I am Mr. Luggage Test, so let's get to the bottom of this. Or rather, the under of this ...  There's quite a bit of underfloor space in the E-Class trunk. Is it useful space for luggage? Um, not at all. Maybe a grocery bag or two, something you don't want rolling around the trunk, contraband? I don't know, but it's not not useful.  It even has an indentation for this little fold-up box, which pops open to keep stuff from rolling around the trunk. What a great little feature.  So, my strong suspicion here is that the 19-cubic-foot trunk volume includes all that underfloor trunk volume. Plenty of SUVs are measured in the same way, and I wouldn't be surprised if the EQS was as well.  I'm not actually going to call shenanigans here. There could very well be 19 cubic-feet of volume present under the trunk lid. Is it a bit of technicality? Sure, but it once again speaks to the limitation of simply relying on a volume measurement. The Mercedes rep wasn't wrong …
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