3/19/2015

TECH

My ride in the car of the future, Mercedes Benz F 105 - Fortune

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES

My ride in the scifi car of

the future
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Fortune.com
by Verne Kopytoff
@vkopytoff
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MARCH 19, 2015

hit an allMARCH 18,Digital

2015,music
6:21 sales
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time high of $4.51 billion

The Mercedez-Benz F 105 autonomous concept car.

Verne Kopytoff/Fortune

Are fully autonomous, driverless cars within grasp? A

new Mercedes-Benz prototype shows the possibilities.
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3/19/2015

My ride in the car of the future, Mercedes Benz F 105 - Fortune

I felt a bit uneasy as a MercedesBenz selfdriving car chauffeured me and my fellow passengers
around an abandoned military airfield. No one was watching the road.

A computer ably steered the car around in gentle loops and, presumably, would have stopped if
another car careened in our path. (In fact, the tarmac was closed to traffic.) But I felt unnerved,
particularly after the Mercedes driver and I did what would be unthinkable in a normal car:
We swiveled our seats to face backwards.

I couldnt help myself from occasionally looking over my shoulder to check what lay ahead.

Welcome to the future, at least as envisioned by Mercedes and its team of futurists who have
built a scifi car that is intended to reflect what driving will be like in 2030. What they came up
with was a plush cabin filled with touch screens and an autopilot who never tires.

Mercedes is trying to show that it has the tech knowhow to succeed in the future. Rival
automakers like Audi, Nissan, and Ford, along with interlopers like Google and Tesla, are all
pushing the envelope as they experiment with a new generation of vehicles that operate
autonomously and, in some cases, have radically different designs.

On Tuesday, Mercedes invited a couple dozen other journalists to ride in its electric prototype,
the F 015. The German automaker had premiered the design at the Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas earlier this year, but had yet to let more than a just handful of outsiders hitch a
ride. The car, of course, is impossibly sleek and metallic, an apparent requirement for visionary
car designs. The body is elongated with the wheels spaced unusually far apart to allow for more
room inside the cabin.

The ride started with Peter Lehmann, the Mercedes engineer who helped create the car, tapping
a smartphone app to summon the vehicle from a pseudogarage nearby that was built for the
occasion at the former Alameda Naval Air Station, located across the bay from San Francisco.
The car woke from its nap and made a slow arc to where we were waiting. As we approached, a
females voice rang out from the car to say Please go ahead, a signal that it was safe to pass in
front.

Using sensors, the car had detected that we were nearby and automatically started slowly
opening the cars four bay doors. I soon found myself sitting in a luxurious and comfortable
white leather seat reminiscent of the style found in airline cockpits. (Money will be of no object
in the future, at least in Mercedes vision.)
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3/19/2015

ride in the car of the future, Mercedes Benz F 105 - Fortune

in the future, at least in MercedesMyvision.)

With Lehmann in the conductors chair, I prepared mentally for the ride. Would it feel odd? Of
course, I considered the possibility of a crash. But theyve rigorously tested the system, right?

After buckling our seat belts, and with little fanfare, the car started to slowly roll across the
pavement. Lehmann never touched the tiny steering wheel, which seemed like an afterthought,
or used the gas and brake peddles. I felt like I was on an amusement park ride as the car made
arcs across the vast expanse of open pavement. After we made a few loops, Lehmann pressed a
button on the side of the seat to swivel his chair to face backwards and suggested I do the same.

This is the future, so why not? And so we spun around to face two fellow passengers in the back
seats. We talked like we were sitting in a hotel lobbyexcept the car was still moving, albeit
probably never faster than 25 miles per hour. I repeatedly felt an uncontrollable urge to turn my
head and peek ahead to make sure the route ahead was clear. I gave in, over and over.

As we moved along, we turned our attention to the cars interior. Mercedes representatives liked
to describe it as a cocoon, suggesting a sort of private retreat. Unburdened from staring at the 3/5

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3/19/2015

My ride in the car of the future, Mercedes Benz F 105 - Fortune

to describe it as a cocoon, suggesting a sort of private retreat. Unburdened from staring at the
road, drivers can instead relax during rides and use the car as a personalized living room for
napping, reading, or futzing with the touch screens installed on nearly every flat surface.

And displayed on those screens? Photos showing a 360degree panorama of the Louvre museum
in Paris and bucolic forest scenes. In theory, car owners could show off their vacation photos,
play movies, get information about potential sightseeing side trips nearby, or make video calls
with friends.

Much of that is purely theoretical at this point. Indeed, the concept car isnt really fully
functional, Mercedes acknowledges. Its more of a source of inspiration that assumes all
regulatory and technical hurdles have already been worked out. In fact, driving the car on city
streets would be illegal because the car lacks fullautonomy (it was programmed specifically for
the airfield) and is without some required safety features like air bags.

Mercedes does have driverless cars that it legally tests on public roads. However, they are
modified production cars that lack the visual pizzaz of the F 015.

Some of the F 015s hightech wizardry is clearly still being worked on. For example, Mercedes
has come up with a sort of light show to a better communicate with pedestrians. If the car comes
across people waiting to cross the road, it stops and uses a laser to project what looks like a green
crosswalk on the street as a signal to walk. The trouble is that such a light show would be
invisible in daylight.

As Mercedes sees it, in the future, cars and pedestrians will increasingly share the same space as
cities become more densely populated. The company is hoping to prepare by imagining what it
can do to make it safer and more convenient. In any case, driverless technology is slowly gaining
momentum. Many production cars already feature more basic versions like collision avoidance
systems, automated parking, and cruise control that keeps cars in their lanes.

But fully autonomous vehicles are still years away from being commercially available. And even
then, its unlikely that laws will allow drivers to swivel their chairs away from the road. Not that
they wont crave a look.

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