It sounds like science-fiction but it isn't. Mercedes Benz has just come out with a model that really drives by itself, the S500 Intelligent Drive. It was unveiled this week at the Frankfurt Fair.
Here it is:
And here's a fascinating video of the first road demonstration, 100 km through town and country under all sorts of road conditions:
Neat! Serial production for most self-driving models is expected soon, for 2020. Yet Mercedes' latest version of the S-Class is practically a self-driving car. It is able to accelerate and brake by itself, even in stop-and-go traffic, and can steer itself on a lightly curved road. It will go on sale in the US next month, for a little more than $92,000. Very costly of course. But if you think about it, it's way under the price of super cars like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini and it is (almost) a normal price for a luxury, top-of-the-line car.
Why am I excited? Because this is a real breakthrough. We all know about Google's driverless car. It's been around for a while using a modified Toyota Prius but so far it had been alone in its class, almost viewed with suspicion, as a geeky thing unlikely to be practical.
Now it's no longer alone. All the major car makers have joined the geeks and are testing autonomous car technologies, but Mercedes is the first one that has actually built a self-driving model that works - now! And it is teaming up with Nokia to improve the detailed maps needed for this type of driving.
Mercedes is hot and up there with Google.
According to the Herald Tribune's Jack Ewing (see here), auto-makers worry that the new generations are not interested in cars and spend all their money on tech stuff from smart phones to tablets rather than taking a driving license. They figure a self-driving car will fire their imagination.
Maybe. I don't belong to the new XYZ generation (or whatever you call it), but I can tell you that as a baby boomer, my imagination is fired. And I'm convinced this kind of car is going to be indispensable for senior citizens - not the ultra rich who can afford a human chauffeur, but the majority who can't and yet need one as they grow older and can't drive (or drive safely) anymore...That's a big market, the baby boomer market, and Mercedes will be hitting it at just the right time, in 2020, when the youngest boomer will have just turned 56 and the oldest 74... Good timing!
As for me, more modestly and certainly less expensively, this means I will have to adjust the final editing of my Forever Young science fiction novel to make sure self-driving cars are in the future I envision, 200 years from now. They will surely be run-of-the-mill, perhaps not for everyone, but certainly for the well-to-do...But I've added yet another twist to them: they're "hover crafts", riding on maglev suspension, high above ground where the rest of humanity grovels and gets stuck in traffic jams...Hey, my science fiction is really fiction!
Here it is:
And here's a fascinating video of the first road demonstration, 100 km through town and country under all sorts of road conditions:
Neat! Serial production for most self-driving models is expected soon, for 2020. Yet Mercedes' latest version of the S-Class is practically a self-driving car. It is able to accelerate and brake by itself, even in stop-and-go traffic, and can steer itself on a lightly curved road. It will go on sale in the US next month, for a little more than $92,000. Very costly of course. But if you think about it, it's way under the price of super cars like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini and it is (almost) a normal price for a luxury, top-of-the-line car.
Why am I excited? Because this is a real breakthrough. We all know about Google's driverless car. It's been around for a while using a modified Toyota Prius but so far it had been alone in its class, almost viewed with suspicion, as a geeky thing unlikely to be practical.
Now it's no longer alone. All the major car makers have joined the geeks and are testing autonomous car technologies, but Mercedes is the first one that has actually built a self-driving model that works - now! And it is teaming up with Nokia to improve the detailed maps needed for this type of driving.
Mercedes is hot and up there with Google.
According to the Herald Tribune's Jack Ewing (see here), auto-makers worry that the new generations are not interested in cars and spend all their money on tech stuff from smart phones to tablets rather than taking a driving license. They figure a self-driving car will fire their imagination.
Maybe. I don't belong to the new XYZ generation (or whatever you call it), but I can tell you that as a baby boomer, my imagination is fired. And I'm convinced this kind of car is going to be indispensable for senior citizens - not the ultra rich who can afford a human chauffeur, but the majority who can't and yet need one as they grow older and can't drive (or drive safely) anymore...That's a big market, the baby boomer market, and Mercedes will be hitting it at just the right time, in 2020, when the youngest boomer will have just turned 56 and the oldest 74... Good timing!
As for me, more modestly and certainly less expensively, this means I will have to adjust the final editing of my Forever Young science fiction novel to make sure self-driving cars are in the future I envision, 200 years from now. They will surely be run-of-the-mill, perhaps not for everyone, but certainly for the well-to-do...But I've added yet another twist to them: they're "hover crafts", riding on maglev suspension, high above ground where the rest of humanity grovels and gets stuck in traffic jams...Hey, my science fiction is really fiction!
Related articles
Nokia, Mercedes-Benz to create maps for self-driving cars(news.cnet.com)
Self-driving cars a Reality now(souptub.wordpress.com)
Nokia is working on self-driving cars with Mercedes(gigaom.com)
Self-driving Mercedes is your chauffeur | Reviewed.com(cars.reviewed.com)
Mercedes shows off fully autonomous S-Class, promises production version by 2020(digitaltrends.com)
Comments
I have always prided myself on my ability to drive well. I even had dreams of being a race car driver and had an opportunity that I "played" with until I discovered that I had other options in my life. Most of the other maniacs on the track with me didn't and they drove like they knew it.
Thus, I would be offended by owning a car that drove for me EXCEPT THAT it isn't as much fun as it once was. The world's population has doubled at least once, maybe twice, in my lifetime and the roads are now crowded with people texting, talking, and doing most everything except paying attention to driving.
I also used to dream of owning a flying car, but can you imagine raising traffic several hundred feet into the air? Lord, help us all...
But for us now, I consider a self-driving car as really good news, so many of us are a danger to others in the way they drive, texting, speaking in the phone etc. And the traffic jams are unbearable, might as well let the car handle them for you! You're quite right, the pleasure of driving is a pleasure of the past. We're showing our age, ha ha!