It aims to improve life in urban areas without overcrowding existing roads
Autonomous vehicles have long fascinated car designers and engineers, and now they are taking center stage as our roads become increasingly crowded. Among these innovative designs is the Vision Urbanetic by Mercedes-Benz, an all-electric modular concept that is designed to adapt to the demands of the modern world. However, while the promotional material may highlight its versatility, the true test lies in its real-world performance.
I’ll cut straight to the chase: it looks odd. Sure, it’s supposed to be modern and future-proof, but can you imagine how that shiny bodywork would look like covered in dirt? Yeah, I can’t either.
Leaving looks aside for a moment, I have to tell you what this thing is. In short, it’s an all-electric autonomous platform that can be mated to a passenger pod or a cargo shell. With the people module, it can accommodate up to twelve passengers, while the freight module has a volume of 10 m3 and can transport up to ten EPAL palettes (presumably, empty palettes, because there is no way ten fully loaded ones will fit in there).
The Germans describe the Vision Urbanetic as “a revolutionary mobility concept that goes way beyond existing ideas on autonomous vehicles,” but that’s not really true, since Rinspeed showed a strikingly similar concept at CES 2018.
Anyway, the idea is pretty clever – the pods can be changed manually or automatically, and the platform is part of an IT infrastructure that analyzes the supply and demand within a defined area in real time. In other words, a self-driving fleet of such vehicles could be deployed automatically to a concert venue in order to meet the demand of people who want to go home after the party. So no more price surging – that’s pretty sweet.
On the nose of the platform sits a digital display to inform pedestrians about the car’s intentions, and around the side door there’s something called “digital shadowing” – hundreds of lights that signal to those waiting to catch a lift that the car has noticed them.
You can see the Mercedes-Benz Vision Urbanetic concept in action in the video below.
