Mercedes-Benz says it is taking an all-encompassing, completely interconnected approach to safety and autonomy with the company’s future plans built into the acronym CASE which stands for Connected, Autonomous, Sharing and Electric mobility.
Mercedes-Benz Cars product and technology communications manager, Bernhard Weidemann, told GoAutoNews Premium: “The four pillars of CASE will each make massive changes to dealership management and structure.
“We see CASE as representing new opportunities for our dealers. It will require changes, such as a different sales technique and the way that the dealer interacts with the customer.
“But this is the way of the digital world. It will be more about communicating with the customer rather than the classical case of just selling a product.
“If you look at how people buy mobile phones; many people buy online because it’s cheaper and more convenient. Yet every time you walk past an Apple store, it’s packed with people who are looking to buy.
“To say that the digital world will keep people away from conventional shops is wrong.”
Mr Weidemann predicted that dealers would also use a connected car to rent.
“That’s another potential income stream for the dealer,” he said.
“Car sharing is already very popular in the private car rental industry. People who own cars can rent then when the car is not in use. Dealers who hold large stocks of cars can do the same.”
Mr Weidemann and Mercedes-Benz Cars manager of validation and testing, Jochen Haab, have been in Australia over the past week testing mapping systems that integrate with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class model’s semi-autonomous functions.
Parts of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia are one of only five places in the world – there’s also Los Angeles, Johannesburg, parts of Germany and China’s Shanghai – that are being used for testing the latest map-based autonomy.
The program has already covered 9.5 million kilometres of driving using 175 test cars over the past seven years. The cost of the program is being kept secret.
Mercedes-Benz Cars has sent one car, a 2017 left-hand drive S-Class S500, around the world on the tour complete with three more staff from Germany, a boot load of sensors, a myriad of cameras and additional equipment to download and appraise the data collected.
Parallel testing is almost complete using an Australian-registered E-Class – one of the 175 global cars used for localised data collection – that has been driven around Australia and is soon to be shipped to New Zealand to continue to collate data.
The result will be accurate mapping data in Mercedes-Benz’s major markets that will allow a smooth transition to partial autonomy in its products as early as late 2018.
“We are trying to get this to the market as soon as possible,” Mr Haab said.
“But highly-accurate mapping is the key to making this happen. We cannot have a 99.5 per cent accuracy – that is too low because it will still have a margin for accidents.”
Mercedes-Benz is using the mapping information provided by HERE, the European-based map business in which it invested two years ago along with other transport partners including BMW and Audi.
The maps are validated in the car’s satellite navigation system, then adapted to allow the car to autonomously follow these maps.
The autonomous features of the car hinge on the Distronic adaptive cruise control with additional sensors and cameras including the ability to scan and abide by speed signs – which will then allow a car to drive through most parts of the world with barely any input from the driver.
But there is still work to be done.
“We have no strategy if there is an incident – I (as the driver) have to intervene,” Mr Haab said.
“We can’t predict everything. We need strategies to deal with the unexpected. So we have to come up with solutions.
“We are finding the limitations of the maps and the autonomous software today so we will be ready tomorrow.”
The software will be enhanced through future models to allow Mercedes vehicles to communicate with other Mercedes vehicles, as well as interact with other suppliers such as Google and TomTom via an in-car SIM card to take on information about weather reports, changed road conditions such as storm damage, accidents and traffic congestion.
“This will allow the self-drive car to be aware of the conditions around it and adjust its speed accordingly,” Mr Haab said.
“By next year, every Mercedes car will be fitted with ‘E-Call’ – an automatic emergency call made when the car senses an accident – that doesn’t use a SIM card.
“After that, a car-to-car (called Car2X) system with a SIM card will come and that will allow cars to talk to one another.”
By Neil Dowling
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