Attention Google: Your self-driving car looks wimpy compared to this self-driving beast-turned-truck. On Thursday, German automaker Daimler demonstrated the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025 to spectators. The New York Times reports that it’s “capable of responding to traffic while driving completely autonomously down a freeway” reaching speeds as high as 52 miles per hour. To simulate real traffic conditions, the truck was surrounded by other tests cars that slowed down in front of it to prove that it’s capable of speed control. In another instance, it shifted to the far-right lane to allow an emergency vehicle to pass on its left. But, unlike Google’s prototype, the truck doesn’t ditch the steering wheel because it’s still needed for safety maneuvers, such as “overtaking a slower-moving vehicle in the left lane,” the newspaper adds. There’s only one prototype in existence and a price hasn’t yet been announced.
For Daimler, the truck driver of the future looks something like this: He is seated in the cab of a semi, eyes on a tablet and hands resting in his lap. Daimler demonstrated its vision Thursday along a stretch of the A14 autobahn near Magdeburg in eastern Germany, the culmination of years of innovation. It says the vehicle — called the Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025, a nod to the year the carmaker hopes it will be introduced — is capable of responding to traffic while driving completely autonomously down a freeway at speeds of up to 85 kilometers per hour, or 52 miles per hour. “The Future Truck 2025 leads to more efficiency, and better safety and connectivity,” said Wolfgang Bernhard, the head of Daimler Trucks. “This in turn results in a more sustainable transport system to the benefit of the economy, society and consumers.” Only one prototype of Future Truck 2025 exists, and the company declined to reveal for how much the vehicle would sell. Regulatory and legal challenges also remain before the truck would be allowed to take to the road. No figures are available for commercial vehicles, but analysts with IHS Automotive predicted in a research note that adding self-driving technology to personal cars, which more manufacturers are exploring, would increase the cost of vehicles by about $10,000 by 2020. Along an eight-lane stretch of the autobahn, the large silver truck of the future fell into line with 20 other vehicles used to simulate realistic driving conditions. The truck responded to slowing cars in its lane by adjusting its speed accordingly and registered an approaching emergency vehicle in time to slide effortlessly into the far-right lane, allowing the emergency vehicle to pass on the left.
