Mercedes is Testing a Self Driving S Class in Five Different Continents

Mercedes is on a five-continent road trip with a specially prepared, self-driving S Class that will culminate at CES 2017 in Las Vegas.

The self-driving road trip kicked off at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show, when Daimler CEO Dr. Dieter Zetsche fired a starting gun and sent the test vehicle off on its worldwide trip. The S Class has been automated for testing purposes and will gather information for Daimler as it tackles different driving conditions in different countries. After its completed its testing in Germany, it will be sent off to China, followed by visits to Australia in November and South Africa in December. Finally, the car will be shipped to the US in late December where it will wade through LA traffic en route to CES 2017 in Las Vegas in January.

“Recording, processing and interpreting highly complex traffic situations is the key to safe automated and autonomous driving,” said Daimler board member Ola Kallenius. “This is particularly demanding in dense urban traffic. This is why we are deliberately testing our automated driving functions in everyday driving situations in large cities. In this way not only do our vehicles become more intelligent, they also become safer.”

SEE ALSO: 2018 Nissan Rogue Adds Semi-Autonomous Driving Tech

Each of the countries included in the worldwide trip will contribute to the data collection in its own unique way. The German portion of the trip will analyze autonomous driving behaviors on motorways and in traffic, while the car will be forced to deal with extremely dense traffic and pedestrians in Shanghai. In Cape Town, the focus will be on testing available maps in everyday use, and the LA and Las Vegas legs will revisit driving behaviors in dense urban traffic and focus on overtaking.

With this trip, Mercedes would also like to promote an internationally harmonized legal framework for automated and autonomous driving. The automaker believes a single, unified set of rules for autonomous cars must be adopted by all countries in order to speed up the development and introduction of the technology. Pushing for such legislation is apart of its newly adopted CASE corporate framework – which stands for connected, autonomous, shared and electric.

Discuss this story on our Mercedes-Benz forum.