There was understandably a lot of Back to the Future hype this week thanks to #BackToTheFutureDay taking over the world. With people across the globe contemplating futuristic cars and gadgets, many car manufacturers used this as an excuse to release futuristic, electric-powered cars.
Mercedes was one of these very brands, reflecting Tesla’s interest in autonomous driving with the F 015 Luxury in Motion. With this visionary research vehicle, the firm is pushing the fact that a self-driving car can make for a completely different and much more pleasant experience for the passengers inside…
On the way to autonomous driving
Mercedes-Benz is taking a further major step along the road to accident-free and autonomous driving: Drivers can expect to enjoy a new dimension of safety and comfort. Check out the vid for more…
Expressive installations
Sarah Illenberger has drawn attention to the Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion by producing five spectacular installations. To do this, the renowned artist had to work between the poles of the technological future and artistic handiwork. With these installations, Illenberger has translated the fascinating features of the F 015 Luxury in Motion into an expressive pictorial world that brings the observer closer to the Mercedes-Benz vision of autonomous driving. The subjects take the leap into the new era of driving, rendering the associated changes touchable and comprehensible. This process sees automotive engineering and design achievements becoming art in the best sense of the word.
Great attention to detail
“The artisanal design of the sets makes the still abstract, pioneering technology of autonomous driving approachable,” states Sarah Illenberger by way of elucidating her work. With Illenberger, the project has gained a renowned artist and designer who develops visual ideas and concepts for editorial offices and independent promotional productions. Her pieces, finished by hand with great attention to detail, bridge the gap between art and design. Photography and humour are important components of her work.
Illenberger’s artistic productions have already featured in international magazines such as Style & The Family Tunes, Sleek, Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine. Galleries in Berlin, Paris and Tokyo have exhibited her work. She mostly makes use of sustainable materials such as paper, wood or wool.
Looking at automotive visions
With Illenberger’s artwork, Mercedes-Benz is compiling a supplement dealing with the topic of autonomous driving for inclusion in German national daily newspapers. In this way, the brand is raising the profile of its automotive visions against the backdrop of the IAA in Frankfurt/Main. Using the example of the visionary F 015 Luxury in Motion research vehicle, presented at the CES in Las Vegas at the beginning of the year, the brand is providing a comprehensive outlook on the future of mobility and showing how autonomous driving will change society.
With this autonomous research vehicle, Mercedes-Benz impressively demonstrates how the car can be transformed from a pure means of transport into a private retreat. The exceptionally spacious lounge-like interior of the F 015 Luxury in Motion allows the occupants to make optimum use of the journey time and takes in-car comfort and luxury to a new level. One key aspect of the research vehicle is the continuous exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world. A “Making of” film shows how the installations came into being. Mercedes’ new creative agency antoni is responsible for project concept and realisation for the first time.
Mercedes-Benz F 015 TV commercial “Baby”
The Mercedes-Benz F 015 turns your car time into quality time.
The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion
With the F 015 Luxury in Motion Mercedes-Benz provides technically feasible and socially desirable solutions to the challenges of mobility.
The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion research car and its immersive user experience is an innovative perspective into the future of mobility.
In order to provide a foundation for the new autonomous F 015 Luxury in Motion research vehicle, an interdisciplinary team of experts from Mercedes-Benz has devised a future scenario that incorporates many different aspects of day-to-day mobility. Above and beyond its mobility function, this scenario perceives the motor car as a private retreat that additionally offers an important added value for society at large.
“Anyone who focuses solely on the technology has not yet grasped how autonomous driving will change our society,” emphasises Dr Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. “The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space.”
Expressive forerunner of a mobility revolution
The visionary research vehicle was born, a vehicle which raises comfort and luxury to a new level by offering a maximum of space and a lounge character on the inside. Every facet of the F 015 Luxury in Motion is the utmost reflection of the Mercedes way of inter-preting the terms “modern luxury”, emotion and intelligence.
This innovative four-seater is a forerunner of a mobility revolution, and this is immediately apparent from its futuristic appearance. Sensuousness and clarity, the core elements of the Mercedes-Benz design philosophy, combine to create a unique, progressive aesthetic appeal.
Quality time
The “City of the Future 2030+” vision: urbanisation has continued to advance, and the little urban space there is today is scarcer than ever. In an urban environment where space is at a premium and everything happens at a hectic pace, people have a growing desire for privacy and a place to retreat to. Autonomous driving is taken for granted – it is accepted by society and the technology is perfectly reliable. As the autonomous car takes over from the driver in situations where driving isn’t much fun, such as slow-moving traffic, it gives real added quality to time spent out on the road.
The passengers in self-driving cars use their newly gained free time while travelling for relaxing or working as they please.
A luxury lounge providing maximum comfort
Sensual, flowing transitions and warm, organic materials such as open-pore walnut wood, which has been shaped to a three-dimensional veneer, and extremely soft ice-white nappa leather contrast with clearly-defined metal and glass surfaces with a cool and technical feel. The transitions between organic, metal and synthetic materials have been designed using matrix graphics; and the flowing transitions deliver a new, unparalleled feeling of bounteous space. The light-coloured fine wood used for the floor, for example, flows almost imperceptibly into the cool Plexiglass of the side panels thanks to their unusual surface matrix.
The transition between the vehicle floor and the door panels also echoes the outer body shape in a characterful way. The pivotal feature of the innovative interior concept is the variable seating system, with four rotating lounge chairs that allow a face-to-face seat configuration.
The interior as a digital living space
One core theme of the innovative interior concept is a continuous exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world. Six displays are installed to this end all around, tastefully mounted in the instrument panel and the rear and side walls, making the interior of the F 015 Luxury in Motion a digital living space – a perfect symbiosis of the virtual and the real world. Passengers are able to interact intuitively with the connected vehicle by means of gestures or by touching the high-resolution screens.
Visual and acoustic signals for greater safety
The F 015 Luxury in Motion communicates with its surroundings both visually and acoustically. Large LED displays at the front and rear as well as a laser projection system directed toward the front are responsible for the visual part, while the acoustic communication repertoire includes both sounds and specific spoken instructions.
Revolutionary vehicle structure
The high-strength body of the F 015 Luxury in Motion ensures optimum safety and supreme comfort for its passengers. At the same time, the bodyshell’s structure provides the ideal basis for impact-protected installation of an F-CELL PLUG-IN HYBRID drive system, for the door concept that makes getting in and out especially easy, and for the communication-oriented seating featuring four lounge chairs in a face-to-face arrangement.
1,100 kilometres of zero-emission driving
The electric hybrid system has a total range of 1,100 kilometres, including around 200 kilometres of battery-powered driving and around 900 kilometres on the electricity from the fuel cell.
This enables the F 015 Luxury in Motion to cover distances similar to those of a comparable diesel-engined car, but purely on electric power with zero local emissions.
Autonomous long-distance drive
The S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE research vehicle demonstrates the feasibility of autonomous driving on both interurban and urban routes. Mercedes-Benz became the first motor manufacturer to demonstrate the feasibility of autonomous driving on both interurban and urban routes.
In the tracks of Bertha Benz
In August 1888, Bertha Benz set off on her famous first long-distance automobile journey from Mannheim to Pforzheim. In doing so, the wife of Carl Benz demonstrated the suitability of the Benz patent motor car for everyday use and thus paved the way for the worldwide success of the automobile. Precisely 125 years later, in August 2013, Mercedes-Benz recorded a no less spectacular pioneering achievement following the same route. Developed on the basis of the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE research vehicle autonomously covered the approximately 100 kilometres between Mannheim and Pforzheim. Yet, unlike Bertha Benz all those years ago, it did not have the road “all to itself”, but had to negotiate dense traffic and complex traffic situations.
Autonomous driving
Partially automated driving is already available to drivers of new Mercedes-Benz E and S-Class models: the new DISTRONIC PLUS with Steering Assist and Stop&Go Pilot is capable of steering the vehicle mainly autonomously through traffic jams. This system thus forms the core of “Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive”, the intelligent networking of all safety and comfort systems.
