The new 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class could potentially have been the world’s first fully autonomous production car, but too many question marks remained says the company’s technical support manager, Jochen Haab.
Risks include that of product liability issues and the potential for crippling law suits. In addition, “We would have to have full data recording on board,” said Haab, “and would our customers be willing to accept such a system?” Whether the car’s systems would be able to account for all eventualities and intelligently adapt to the multitude of changing conditions and circumstance, was another aspect of risk for Mercedes’ engineers.
Nevertheless, Mercedes-Benz is committed to being the first manufacturer to offer a fully autonomous car under all driving conditions and recently showed off their S500 prototype, which is not far off their ultimate goal.
