It was arguably one of the most beautiful things on display at this year's Consumer Electronics Show - the new Mercedes-Benz research vehicle, F 015 Luxury in Motion. The F 015 made its world premiere at the show and it was an incredible attraction. There were no barriers holding people back from touching the vehicle or even sitting inside for a selfie. The car went out on the road in Las Vegas as well, to get the message out that this is a real working concept and not just a pretty model. In the F 015, Mercedes-Benz is providing a concrete example of the ideas the company is developing with regards to autonomous driving in the future. The F 015 self-driving luxury saloon illustrates how Mercedes-Benz sees the car growing beyond its role as a means to get from here to there, and instead ultimately becoming a private space in a public world. This new way of travelling will offer passengers the freedom to use their valuable time on the road in other more attractive ways. In Saudi Arabia, the F 015 could bring women freedom only imagined. Since the car drives itself, the debate over women driving would be over. “Anyone who focuses solely on the technology has not yet grasped how autonomous driving will change our society. The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space,” explained Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. Prof. Dr. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, responsible for Group Research and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars Development added, “Autonomous driving is one of the greatest innovations since the invention of the motor car. Drivers are relieved of work and stress in situations in which driving is not enjoyable, and the time gained while in their car takes on a whole new quality.” The F 015 has a large amount of space in its lounge-like interior, offering seats for four travelers. It has unusual proportions (length/width/height: 5220/2018/1524 millimeters), a seamless exterior and large LED light modules at the front and rear. The vehicle communicates and interacts with the outside world by means of the LED fields. These LED fields show for example, if the F 015 is driving autonomously (blue) or is controlled manually (white). The F 015 Luxury in Motion's unusually large wheelbase of 3610 millimeters in combination with its short overhangs demonstrate that the design focus is on providing the maximum possible interior space for the passengers. In the interior of the F 015 Luxury in Motion, the design incorporates warm, organic materials such as walnut wood shaped into a three-dimensional veneer and extremely soft white nappa leather that contrasts with clearly-defined metal and glass surfaces. An innovative idea in the vehicle is the variable seating system, with 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. 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. One key aspect of the research vehicle is the continuous exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world. This is facilitated by six display screens 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. The car is designed to operate on an electric drive system with a fuel cell. To get the maximum mileage, lighter, safer materials were used in the high-strength “Smart Body Structure (SBS)” of the F 015. By combining carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), aluminum and high-strength steels in a way that matches the varying vehicle structural requirements exactly, the lightweight engineering experts were able to make the car's bodyshell 40 percent lighter compared with today's production vehicles. Another key element of the body design concept is the innovative saloon-door-style door system featuring rear-hinged rear doors. The front and rear doors can be opened and closed independently of one another and all doors have an opening angle of 90 degrees. An interconnected system with mechanical locking elements ensures exemplary safety standards. These elements securely interlock the front and rear doors when they are closed and at the same time fix them firmly to the roof frame and side skirts. The resulting composite load path allows an extremely high amount of energy to be absorbed in the event of frontal or side impact in a crash, while the passenger compartment remains intact. In a side-on collision, bodywork elements in the doors “inflate” in an instant, just like an airbag, allowing them to absorb as much impact energy as possible. While the Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion won't be driving down the Kingdom's roads anytime soon, this doesn't mean that autonomous driving vehicles are just the stuff of imagination. In August 2013, Mercedes-Benz demonstrated to great effect that autonomous driving is possible now. The close-to-production Mercedes-Benz S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE completed the approximately 100-kilometer journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, fully autonomously, following the route the German automotive pioneer Bertha Benz, the wife and business partner of automobile inventor Karl Benz, took in 1888 on the first ever long-distance drive by an automobile.
