Big change coming to Mercedes-Benz as the luxury marque accelerates autonomous driving

The up-market German car manufacturer has launched new tech in its cars, declaring it will help make traffic jams a thing of the past.

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled the next generation of adaptive cruise control, tapping into its self-driving car technology to allow motorists to automatically overtake slower vehicles.

The luxury German carmaker showcased the new technology in Melbourne this week. It is available across Europe and the company is working with Australian regulators to secure a local launch.

A total of 15 models have been equipped with the automatic lane change function, which can either be factory-fitted or installed via a software update on eligible vehicles.

Mercedes says it now has more than 40 driving assistance systems, and has secured regulator approval for its fully driverless cars in Germany, California and Nevada after partnering with Google to accelerate the rollout of its autonomous technology.

It envisages its self-driving cars will be able to pick up children from school and deliver greater mobility to the elderly and people with disabilities. For its semi-autonomous cars — like the ones fitted with the lane changing function — Mercedes head of active safety, Jochen Haab, says the technology has the potential to make traffic jams a thing of the past.

“It’s like a liquid,” Mr Haab told The Australian.

“If somebody does weird things, brakes or cuts in, it’s like putting your hands in the flow of water. You get a wave and it goes all the way back. But, the higher the automation, the more fluid it will be.”

Mercedes-Benz has launched a new automatic lane changing function, to allow drivers to pass slower cars.

Of course, Mr Haab concedes there are a few caveats to this. The main one is all drivers would need to use such automation on highways. And, given the average age of a car in Australia is 10.6 years, according to the Bureau of Statistics, achieving such a feat remains elusive.

But Mr Haab is adamant it represents the future, highlighting how regular cruise control, and now adaptive cruise control — which automatically adjusts to the speed of the car in front of you — is becoming standard.

Australians are also quick adopters of auto technology, particularly in regard to safety features, with many of the functions considered standard costly optional extras in other countries.

Mercedes launched its automatic parallel parking feature locally more than 15 years ago, which at the time — while groundbreaking — was clunky, with the function not always activating, given drivers had to drive at a set speed and set distance from a line of parked cars.

But, Mr Haab says technology has improved and its advancements give hope to the more mainstream use of autonomous driving systems, such as the automatic lane changing function and the ability to help eradicate traffic congestion.

“A couple of months ago, we doubled the speed of automatic parking, so the use case has got dramatically better and the better the use case, the higher the acceptance,” Mr Haab said.

Mercedes-Benz says the new automatic lane changing function can help eradicate traffic jams.

“People use it, people talk about and it becomes more like a viral effect. We see that and are happy about that. 10 years from now, nobody is going to talk about that.

“There will be super consistent usage and hopefully have that effect that we were talking about with traffic being more fluent with less traffic jams.

“It may be that traffic will move slower but at a much higher speed. It sounds contradictory — if you go from 80km/h to 120, 60, 40, 80 and say you get an average of 65, then it’s better to go at 80 and stay at 80.”

But, a potential roadblock is resistance is some quarters, with US lobby group the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) criticising partial autonomous driving systems.

“Some drivers may feel that partial automation makes long drives easier, but there is little evidence it makes driving safer,” IIHS President David Harkey said in March.

“As many high-profile crashes have illustrated, it can introduce new risks when systems lack the appropriate safeguards.

“We evaluated partial automation systems from BMW, Ford, General Motors, Genesis, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Tesla and Volvo. Most of them don’t include adequate measures to prevent misuse and keep drivers from losing focus on what’s happening on the road.”

Mr Haab said they haven’t marketed their autonomous driving systems as safety features, describing it more as a driver comfort system, saying it makes drivers — particularly across longer distances — feel fresher when they reach their destination.

Mr Haab also had concerns about the IIHS reports methodology. “We were quite concerned about it. We have some scientific questions … the testing methods, the questionnaires, and also to the comparability between the different levels of driving,” he said.

“But we feel very confident that we on the right path.”

Forecasts vary on when autonomous driving will become an everyday reality. BMW showcased its remote-controlled valet parking at CES, the world’s biggest consumer electronics show, in Las Vegas earlier this year. Polestar, meanwhile, expects the technology to hit the mainstream in the later part of the decade.

Of course, like drone deliveries — in which Google, Amazon and other tech companies have a head start — the progress depends on regulators across different markets.

Mercedes says the automatic lane change function will be installed in stages from September. It uses radar sensors and cameras to constantly monitor the car’s surroundings in order to overtake slower cars on the motorway and then return to the original lane.

Mercedes says the feature can also initiate an automatic lane change in order to navigate to the relevant motorway junctions or exits when route guidance is active.

In Europe, the feature can be activated when travelling at speeds of 80 to 140 km/h. The navigation system must also recognise a driver is travelling on a suitable motorway — i.e. with at least two separate lanes. Furthermore, lane markings must be detected by the car’s cameras, and sufficient free space must be available.

Crucially, Mercedes says the function is a Level 2 system, which means the driver remains responsible for driving the car at all times.

Originally published as Big change coming to Mercedes-Benz as the luxury marque accelerates autonomous driving