If you thought the driverless Google car was kind of a cool idea, rest assured: You haven’t seen anything yet.
That’s because German automaker Mercedes-Benz has taken the idea of the autonomously driven car light years past the Google car with its new and stunning vehicle F 015 Luxury in Motion sedan that was introduced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“With this self-driving luxury (sedan) Mercedes-Benz illustrates how the car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a private retreating space,” M-B officials wrote in the new car’s announcement. “This new way of travelling gives passengers the freedom to use their valuable time on the road in manifold ways.”
Ordinarily, it would be tempting to dismiss such statements as hype, but in this case they’re not.
The automaker clearly believes that autonomous or self-driving cars are the way of the future, and have firmly committed to making them a reality.
"Anyone who focuses solely on the technology has not yet grasped how autonomous driving will change our society,” said explains Dr. Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. “The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space.”
To that end, the F 015 Luxury in Motion features a huge, open, lounge-like interior, featuring “four rotating lounge chairs that allow a face-to-face seat configuration. In order to make getting in and out of the car easier, the electrically powered seats also swing outwards by 30 degrees as soon as the doors are opened,” the car’s press materials state. “If necessary, the driver and front-seat passenger can also turn their eyes and attention towards the front – a prerequisite for manual driving. To this end the steering wheel extends automatically from the dashboard.”
But wait, there’s more.
“One key aspect of the research vehicle is the continuous exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world,” says the car’s press kit. “This is facilitated by six display screens harmoniously integrated into the instrument panel and the rear and side panels, which turn the interior of the F 015 Luxury in Motion into a digital arena. Passengers can interact intuitively with the connected vehicle through gestures, eye-tracking or by touching the high-resolution screens. Sensors recognize the passengers' hands and offer them user interfaces within convenient reach that present appropriate operating options for each particular situation. Particle streams on the displays visualize the vehicle's movement.”
How cool is that?
Cool enough to be the FOXSports.com cool car of the day, we reckon.
And it looks like it won’t be too far in the future when we’ll be riding around in autonomous vehicles. And that will be pretty cool, too.
