In the near future, you might be able to call a limo without a driver, as Mercedes-Benz is considering creating a driverless version of the luxurious vehicle.
The company has not announced anything official, but they are looking into the possibility.
CEO of Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes, Dieter Zetsch said “This is a concrete development goal of ours.” Zetsch was speaking at the Frankfurt International Motor Show.
The service would supposedly be aimed at consumers who don’t see a need for owning a vehicle but still seek an occasional premium transportation service.
Mercedes-Benz has great potential for such a product. Daimler owns Car2Go, a car rental service, as well as taxi rental app MyTaxi. Additionally, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a futuristic driverless vehicle prototype at CES 2015. The company also featured a self-driving truck at the event it 2014.
Zetsche wants to make the Car2Go service capable of showing up without being prompted, arriving based on calendar appointments.
Driverless cars are quickly becoming a mainstream phenomenon in the automotive community. Yesterday, Google announced that it had hired John Krafcik, former CEO of Hyundai, as the CEO of its driverless vehicle project.
Meanwhile, other manufacturers, including Tesla and Toyota, are also working on self-driving technology and taxi hailing giants Uber and Didi Kuaidi have long had their sights on a self driving taxi service.
The self-driving vehicles from Mercedes-Benz are expected to be available to the public by 2025. This is behind the expected date of 2020 of other manufacturers, such as Google, who also is in the advanced stages of creating mass produced self driving vehicles.
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