Photo: Mercedes-Benz
Potholes are a nightmare to deal with. Running into one can puncture your tire as well as bend or crack your wheel. They can damage your suspension and take a toll on your car's alignment. Since no one wants to spend money on auto maintenance every time they hit a particularly nasty pothole, Mercedes-Benz owners can now benefit from new tech to avoid them.
The German carmaker is adding some safety features on passenger cars produced from 2016 onwards, on the new-generation C-Class and S-Class models, and on the EQS. If the chassis control unit detects a pothole or a speed bump and the "Car-to-X Communication" service is enabled, the information, together with positional data, is communicated in real-time to the Mercedes-Benz Cloud.
Surrounding Mercedes-Benz passenger cars will be informed, and the events are marked on the navigation map with icons. About 10 seconds before the vehicle reaches the event, an audible warning is given, and the icon is visually highlighted.
Mercedes-Benz passenger cars produced from 2016 onwards whose owners have a Mercedes me account and a "Car-to-X Communication" service and online accessibility will receive the warning information given with the familiar voice output "Traffic event ahead."
In the new C-Class, S-Class, and EQS, the warning is "Look out, pothole!" or "Attention, speed bump." The additional warnings are available in all of the infotainment system's 36 languages.
The company says that the new pothole detecting technology was assessed on trial tracks at the company's Test and Technology Centre. The features were put to the test on what is known as comfort tracks, which have a variety of bumps and potholes.
When a particular threshold value is reached during sudden suspension compression and rebound, new-generation C-Class and S-Class models, as well as the EQS, may detect potholes. Speed bumps are detected using a similar algorithm, but in this case, the detection is realized through the compression and rebound sequence.
Surrounding Mercedes-Benz passenger cars will be informed, and the events are marked on the navigation map with icons. About 10 seconds before the vehicle reaches the event, an audible warning is given, and the icon is visually highlighted.
Mercedes-Benz passenger cars produced from 2016 onwards whose owners have a Mercedes me account and a "Car-to-X Communication" service and online accessibility will receive the warning information given with the familiar voice output "Traffic event ahead."
In the new C-Class, S-Class, and EQS, the warning is "Look out, pothole!" or "Attention, speed bump." The additional warnings are available in all of the infotainment system's 36 languages.
The company says that the new pothole detecting technology was assessed on trial tracks at the company's Test and Technology Centre. The features were put to the test on what is known as comfort tracks, which have a variety of bumps and potholes.
When a particular threshold value is reached during sudden suspension compression and rebound, new-generation C-Class and S-Class models, as well as the EQS, may detect potholes. Speed bumps are detected using a similar algorithm, but in this case, the detection is realized through the compression and rebound sequence.
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