my apologies - i have now deleted my previous article on this subject that over-sold Porsche’s system as revolutionary, when it was merely evolutionary. after researching the Mercedes system i realized Porsche’s version was merely an evolution of the Mercedes system.
i knew Mercedes had active suspension but i didn’t realize it was so similar. i thought Porsche tech must be different because of how dramatic it was in operation:
here is the Demo for Porsche Active Ride:
but it turned out the reason Porsche system is so much more dramatic is simply that it runs on 400 Volts ( versus 48 Volts for Mercedes ) meaning it is just a lot more powerful.
Mercedes system is called “E-Active Body Control” and was available on S-Class for 3 years and on GLS for 5 years by the time Porsche came out with “Active Ride”.
Here is the demo of the Mercedes system on the GLS:
both systems are electrohydraulic with an electric pump at each wheel controlling the individual dampers.
as for what preceded the Mercedes system it was a similar system called Mercedes “Magic Body Control” which was itself basically identical except that instead of four electric motor pump units the pump was driven by a belt from the combustion engine ( it still had four separate actuators at each wheel ).
by going to electric motors two benefits are realized:
1 - the system can operate with the engine off, which in the era of hybridization and electrification is somewhat mandatory.
2 - the system can actually recuperate some of the energy from bumps in the road and overall consumes about half the energy compared to previous belt driven design - again, somewhat mandatory in the current climate of energy savings.
then even before that cars had active roll bars ( my BMW had them ) which is similar to Mercedes Magic Body Control but instead of four active hydraulic dampers you had two active hydraulic anti-roll bars ( in place of regular dumb anti-roll bars ).
that system worked well but could only compensate for cornering forces. it couldn’t do anything about lift or dive or do any other fancy tricks that these new systems with separate actuators at every wheel can do.
overall the new systems are more elegant in that they eliminate anti-roll bars completely, thus even with 4 actuators instead of two they are actually arguably simpler than the old ones with active anti-roll bars.
i mean if you think about it cars already have dampers at every wheel - the active system just adds a pump ( or pumps ) and eliminates the anti roll bar.
by contrast the older systems didn’t eliminate anything but added both a pump AND hydraulics to the roll bars.
two active roll bars ( front and rear ) > four active actuators one at each wheel
belt driven pump > 48 Volt pump motors > 400 Volt pump motors
i guess the reason Mercedes system fell of my radar is because Mercedes always had the best system and it was just gradually getting better … whereas Porsche leapfrogged from active roll bars, which was an old tech already - straight to a 400 Volt system - so before i had the chance to research the subject more my initial impression was that it was revolutionary, but it was merely evolutionary for the industry as a whole - it was only revolutionary for Porsche lineup.
and ironically i watched Autogefuhl review Porsches with it and he said you don’t need the system because it takes away the feeling of driving a car and makes it feel like a computer game.
Porsche themselves said they spent 3 years calibrating the system to try and make it NOT feel like a computer game but apparently it didn’t work.
as for 48V versus 400V the reason Mercedes used 48V system is because that’s the voltage Mild Hybrids run on, which is the dominant tech right now.
by contrast Porsche developed Active Ride as part of their push to electrify their portfolio with full EVs but when the management tried the system they wanted it on other cars so the system was adapted to run on Plug-in Hybrid 400 Volt architecture.
as a result Porsche system is only available on PHEVs and EVs while Mercedes system is available on even regular Mild Hybrids, which means basically any Mercedes ( of course it’s only available on premium models ).
I am guessing the 48V Mercedes system is all that S-Class really needs because S class is designed for a leisurely ride and the system is there primarily to smooth things out as you glide over the road …
whereas the Panamera is meant for aggressive driving with much larger cornering forces and faster changes of direction, so the 400V system is more appropriate there
both Mercedes and Porsche list newton forces the system is able to generate and although not listed in apples to apples fashion it seems the Porsche system is roughly TWICE as powerful, which is i think appropriate for the use case of Panamera versus S-Class.
