Cell phones that charge wirelessly, drones that reach more than 400 meters in altitude, cars that leave the production lines alone… We are definitely in 2017.
Unveiled in April at the Shanghai Motor Show, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class went into production today at the Mercedes-Benz factory in Sindelfingen, Germany. In addition to debuting a new 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8 engine, a 48 volt electrical system and a new design – check out the news here – the Mercedes-Benz S-Class is also privileged to inaugurate some of the new semi-autonomous driving technologies of the brand.
And it was precisely these new features that Mercedes-Benz chose to mark the start of production of the new S-Class. A Mercedes-Benz S 560 4MATIC autonomously covered the 1.5 km separating the end of the production line from the loading area, inside the Sindelfingen factory itself.
Equipped with additional hardware (not part of the production versions), the S-Class was able to make the journey without any hitches, nor a driver – and only Markus Schäfer, member of the Mercedes-Benz board of directors, sat in the passenger seat of the front.
Markus Schäfer, member of the board of directors of Mercedes-BenzThis autonomous journey of the line from production to the loading area of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class shows how we are going to apply the driving assistance systems in the next production models. [...] Who knows, in the not-so-distant future, Mercedes-Benz will find a way to take the car autonomously to its new owner.
Thanks to a set of assistance systems – what the German brand calls Intelligent Drive – the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class will be able to stay in the same lane thanks to two systems: a sensor that detects structures parallel to the road, as the guardrails, and by reading the trajectories of the vehicle in front. The S-Class will also be able to identify the speed limit of the road or tight curves/junctions, and adjust the speed automatically.
The launch of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class for European markets is expected to take place this autumn.