In August 1888, Bertha Benz – the wife of Carl Benz - and her two sons completed the world's first long distance drive (104 km/65 miles) in the Benz Patent Motorwagen – arguably the first modern automobile in the world.
Exactly 125 years later, the Mercedes-Benz S 500 Intelligent Drive prototype drove in the tracks of Bertha completely without any driver input, becoming the second S-Class in history to deal autonomously with a number of highly complex driving situations on a long distance drive.
Unfortunately, current Mercedes-Benz PR managers don't know a great deal about their own company's history, since they state in the official press release that the W222 S-Class is their first car to complete such a feat.
May we remind them and our users that the first car to be driven autonomously over a longer distance in both city and and highway traffic was the W140 S-Class robot car, made in collaboration between then-Daimler Benz and Prof. Ernst Dieter Dickmanns, part of the EUREKA Prometheus Project. We will write a more in-depth about the latter in the following days.
Nevertheless, the video bellow depicts a much better developed vehicle, while the technology on board is near-production and based on existing sensors already available on the current E-Class W212 and the S-Class W222.
Unfortunately, current Mercedes-Benz PR managers don't know a great deal about their own company's history, since they state in the official press release that the W222 S-Class is their first car to complete such a feat.
May we remind them and our users that the first car to be driven autonomously over a longer distance in both city and and highway traffic was the W140 S-Class robot car, made in collaboration between then-Daimler Benz and Prof. Ernst Dieter Dickmanns, part of the EUREKA Prometheus Project. We will write a more in-depth about the latter in the following days.
Nevertheless, the video bellow depicts a much better developed vehicle, while the technology on board is near-production and based on existing sensors already available on the current E-Class W212 and the S-Class W222.