Reviewing the movie "Jurassic World," Times critic Manohla Dargis complains, "There are so many plugs for Mercedes that you may wonder if the targeted viewers are studio executives." It's an oddly un-self-aware criticism, coming from the same newspaper that in just the past ten days has featured an interview with the head of research and technology at Mercedes-Benz Research and Development in Sunnyvale, Calif., a review of the Mercedes GLA250, which, as tested by the Times, had a sticker price of $45,505, and a third article that began:
One sunny morning a few weeks ago, I slipped into the inviting cockpit of a Mercedes-Benz S550 sedan, a ride equipped with massaging front seats, reclining back seats, a heads-up display worthy of a fighter jet and more speakers than a political convention. At $136,000, this was a car fit for a rap star or a European Union functionary, of which I am neither (yet).
Instead, I write about the future, and embedded in the S550 are a host of technologies that roughly approximate the future of automobile transportation — already available, for a high price, on the road today.