German luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz is also joining the race for self driving cars and has unveiled its concept ‘F015 Luxury in Motion’.
The four-seater futuristic car that has provision for installation of a fuel cell plug-in hybrid drive system could hit up to 1,100 kilometres of zero-emission driving, according to the company. “This is a concept car. We will use the technology in future to develop autonomous driving cars in future,” Daimler director (user interaction & connected car) Ralf Lamberti said at the International CES.
Already, internet giant Google has showcased its self driving car and Mercedes is looking to take the standard much higher. According to the company, passengers in F015 will be able to interact intuitively with the connected vehicle by means of gestures or by touching the high-resolution screen.
It also has a variable seating system with four rotating lounge chairs that allow a face-to-face seat configuration.
“People spend a lot of time in three places — home, office, and car. We want to give people space so that they spend more time in the car in luxury,” Mr. Lamberti said.
Bullish on the future of self driving cars, he said: “It is only a matter of time that people realise that automatic cars are the future of automobile industry.”
Apart from inbuilt sensors to watch pedestrian traffic, the car also have a specially developed app through which it can be sent off to search its own parking space or to another location to collect other occupants.
Besides, the car emits a blue LED light and an audible prompt to indicate the pedestrians if it was safe to cross the road in front of the vehicle.
