STUTTGART (dpa-AFX) – Mercedes-Benz (Mercedes-Benz Group (ex Daimler)) is entering the robotaxis business. The car manufacturer announced a driverless shuttle service based on the new S-Class together with the Chinese software partner Momenta. The DAX company from Stuttgart announced that the first test vehicles will be on the road in Abu Dhabi shortly. The future robotaxi fleet will be operated there by the local mobility provider Lumo.
After an initial test phase, the partners intend to launch it more broadly at other locations and in other markets. Chief Technology Officer and Head of Development Jörg Burzer said: “With an S-Class Robotaxi, we are raising the bar for automated mobility.”
According to the information, the robotaxis is a level 4 system – meaning the vehicles can drive autonomously in defined areas and under certain operating conditions. The step is also interesting because the Swabians had recently withdrawn further and further from the classic taxi business. In order to accelerate the development of autonomous driving, Mercedes is also examining the possibilities of a robotaxi ecosystem based on an NVIDIA platform.
Providers are entering the market
Waymo is considered the leader in robotaxis. Google (Alphabet C (ex Google)) sister company’s driverless robotaxis are operating in a handful of US cities and are now making hundreds of thousands of paid passenger rides per week. Waymo also wants to launch in Europe next year, initially in London. But other companies also have ambitions in the billion-dollar market – including Tesla, the Amazon subsidiary Zoox, the ride-hailing company Uber, Volkswagen (Volkswagen (VW) vz) with the fully autonomous minibus ID-Buzz and Chinese providers such as WeRide.
Mercedes is likely to want to set itself apart from other providers with the new offer: The S-Class is the group’s flagship, is considered luxurious and offers guests plenty of space in the rear seats. At the end of January, the car manufacturer presented a technically revised version of the sedan.
Mercedes has so far been well positioned when it comes to highly automated driving according to Level 3, in which the driver can temporarily hand over responsibility to the car: The brand offers private customers a system in the S-Class and its E-counterpart EQS that can take over the steering wheel up to a speed of 95 km/h on the motorway. In the next five years, Mercedes wants to increase the maximum speed to 130 kilometers per hour./jwe/DP/stk
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