Whenever the term ‘self-driving cars’ comes across the first company that comes in our minds is Google. Although they haven’t been able to release one in the market the search giant has played a major role in popularizing the self-driving cars as it has been working on this technology for many years. Now it seems like mainstream car makers are also showing their interest in the self-driving cars phenomena as companies like Audi and Mercedez have shown interest in them. Audi has already shown off its self-driving car at the CES event.
Following Audi another car manufacturing giant Mercedes-Benz has showed of the self-driving technology dubbed as “virtual chauffer”. The technology is used in its S-Class car which was showcased in Hamburg, Germany. This new car according to Mercedes-Benz is capable of driving itself in city traffic. It is also capable of going in its own lane by itself at a speed of over 120MPH provided it is running on highway and conditions are right.
The S-Class Mercedes-Benz car, which costs $100,000 and is equipped with virtual chauffer technology can park itself, brake automatically incase something include a pedestrian comes ahead of it and tell when a driver is becoming fatigued. While the company boasts the ‘self-driving’ capability of this car it has compared it with the autopilot of planes saying that the car can perform tasks required for going from place to another while the driver keeps an eye on the whole process, intervening where necessary.
While the self-driving cars technology Mercedes-Benz has implemented in the new S-Class is impressive the company aims to make further improvements in the system and add more features including the ability to change lanes while going at high speeds.
Right now self-driving cars no matter how impressive they have become, are not available in the market. Also the law isn’t very welcoming either as in the US law states that drivers need to place their hand on the steering all the time even when their car is in auto mode. [Mercedes-Benz]