The manufacturer of commercial vehicles and cars, Mercedes-Benz, wants to prioritize autonomous driving for a segment.
It has long been foreseeable that vehicle automation will first take place in the Commercial vehicle area will enforce. Above all, this includes trucks. Because the Delivery traffic is increasing, there is a shortage of workers and automation promises efficiency gains.
Future truck Mercedes Benz
There are already a few in the United States Companieswho have spread in the niche and also the Industry leader has created appropriate structures with Waymo Via. The German manufacturer too Mercedes Benz is active in the field and announced in January last year 500 million euros in the development of level 4 trucks.
So far, the car has been the goal of autonomous vehicle technology, but now that is changing. Daimler’s new boss, Ola Källenius, announced to an Australian news website (news.com.au) that in the future they will primarily automate trucks. You could earn more money with this than with automating cars.
This may also be because truck buyers have more money and sensor technology in particular drives up the costs of implementing autonomous driving. Since commercial use tends to benefit from the advantages of autonomous driving, the demand there will also be higher than in the private sector.
Daimler has also acquired a specialist to automate the trucks. With Torc Robotics the tests in the USA have recently been expanded. However, a robot taxi test was carried out last year San Jose started in California. Källenius said that they continue to work on increasing the safety of cars and that cooperation With BMW continue to be scheduled.
The new focus on trucks is that too Austerity dedicated by Källenius. Because the development of technology required high investments and the profits are long in coming. As reported to other media, only a few autonomous vehicles of the manufacturer were in test use in 2019. In this way, 22,500 test kilometers were reached in California. in the Comparison to that Waymo drove 2.3 million test kilometers in California.
About David Fluhr
I have been writing about autonomous & connected driving since 2011 and also report on other sites, such as the Smart Mobility Hub. I studied social sciences at HU Berlin and have been an independent journalist since 2012. Contact: mail@autonomes-fahren.de