Mercedes Moves Closer To Autonomous Cars

When the Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan arrives next summer, driving will become a lot easier due to a multitude of new technologies that will be showcased in the vehicle.

The new offering is slated to debut at the 2016 Detroit auto show and comes with sensors, cameras and radar units that will enable drivers to park their car without being in it, talk to other cars, see the night as if it were day, read traffic signs, and transform a smartphone into a key. The car will not be completely autonomous, but it does demonstrate how much safer driving could become as technology advances.

“The potential of the new E-Class goes beyond what any other car will offer,” said Michael Hafner, director of driver assistant systems and active safety at Mercedes. Certainly, the new features that the automaker showcased at its Pre-Safe Technology briefing outside of Stuttgart, Germany, were very impressive, including a safety feature that moves occupants in the car away from an impact zone, and a device that may save someone’s hearing during a serious accident. The vehicle also includes an Intelligent Drive system that allows the driver to ease off the controls on long stretches of road. By rolling out semi-autonomous driving in a consumer model, Mercedes may help to convince consumers of the benefits of the now-experimental fully driverless vehicles, thereby helping to pave the way for consumer acceptance of self-driving cars in the future..

All of these new features will debut on the next E-Class, and Mercedes promises to move the technology quickly through the rest of its lineup, in much the same way that all of the S-Class features that arrived two years ago have already proliferated through Mercedes’ other cars.

“Automaker-initiated connected car developments have been in the works for many years,” explained Ryan Martin, analyst, IoT and wearable technologies at 451 Research in Boston. “It’s just that now, with past research and development and pilot projects starting to graduate, the conversation is much more public.”

Mercedes’ Remote Parking Pilot works via Bluetooth through an iOS or Android app on the driver’s smartphone. The feature allows them to get out of the car before going into a spot, thereby making it easy to park in tight spaces. The consumer simply selects a standard parking scenario, such as getting into a parallel spot from the left. Once the parking type has been selected, the car completes the action by itself, only relying on the driver to monitor the process and continue to confirm the parking on their phone. Unfortunately, the Remote Parking Pilot will not be available in the U.S. market at launch, but the feature will hopefully roll out globally at some point shortly afterward.

The new technologies that will be available in Mercedes’ E-Class sedan are yet another sign of the increased focus on connected car innovations, with the potential of consumer self-driving car models getting closer to reality with every step.