The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury In Motion Autonomous Research Car

Adam Milton-Barker | Mar 21, 2015 | Autonomous Cars | 5109

 

The concept behind autonomous cars reaches back to the 1920's and the first truly autonomous car appeared in the 1980's. Over the years there have been many prototypes of autonomous or self driving vehicles but is only over the last couple of years since Google announced their Self-Driving Car Project that the general public really began to take notice of them. The concept is evolving so quick that Tesla's Elon Musk even envisions human driven cars to be illegal in the not so distant future. In January this year at CES, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a revolutionary new concept car, a kind of technology demonstrator for a future car design, the kind of car that you would find displayed by companies at motor shows etc. The car is named the F 015 Luxury in Motion and is a very sleek and futuristic design that will allow its passengers to sit back in luxury as the car takes care of the entire journey. The “research car” as Mercedes describe it is so very different to Google's Self-Driving Car Project, all the research and technology is fairly similar, it is very clear that Mercedes see the future of autonomous cars continuing to be luxurious. The interior of the car is wood, leather and aluminium and there are 4 rotating seats that allow passengers to face each other and there are screens on the sides of the cars that allow control and management of the cars various functions and features. The car can be controlled by a cool smartphone application and the doors open and close automatically as its passengers embark and disembark it. On the outside the car has LED panels that show different colors as the car is in different states. If the car is being driven the panels will light up white, if the car is driving autonomously they will light up blue allowing people external to the car know who is driving it. One very cool feature is a system that detects if someone is needing to cross the road or if someone is in the vicinity that would require the car to stop. Once stopped the car gently speaks to the person saying "Please go ahead", the person can respond to the car informing it to continue before they cross and it can even pick up motion gestures telling it to continue on its way. Another very cool feature is a laser that is located on the front of the car that will displays symbols on the road such as a crossing pattern that informs the person it is safe to move in front of the car without the risk of being knocked down. Of all the autonomous concept cars I have seen, for me this one wins hands down. I like the design, the technology and everything about it, although I have no doubt it will be out of my price range if price wasn't an issue it would definitely be on my shopping list when it finally becomes available. Check out the images and the videos on this page to see just how cool this car really is and make sure to check out the official website in the links above.