Sin City Grants MB First Licences for Autonomous Production Vehicles

By Adam Pockross - January 7, 2016

mercedes-benz-e-class-nevada-autonomous-license-1

There are a bunch of car companies working hard at perfecting autonomous tech, but apparently Las Vegas thinks Mercedes-Benz is the best of the bunch.

News out of CES in Vegas this week is that Sin City is doubling down on MB by granting the venerable marque the
first licenses for standard production autonomous vehicles. Specifically, for three brand, spanking new E-Class sedans. Of course the cars won’t be all by their lonesome out there, as a person will still have to be behind the wheel for turning, merging, and departing.

If you’ll recall, back in 2013, Vegas was the first state to grant autonomous car testing licences to Google and Audi. So though the new production vehicle license is thought to be a first of its kind anywhere in the world, it’s also right in line with Vegas’s progressive autonomous driving stance.

Two non-production Daimler trucks have been autonomously driving around Vegas since April. Soon, three new E-Class models will be joining them, bumping around town without any extra componentry. According to a Mercedes-Benz press release:

“The standard-production vehicle is already extensively equipped with intelligent technology. This means that, for testing purposes, it is necessary merely to make some smaller software modifications to the DRIVE PILOT control unit.”

We’ll get a real good look at all that tech when the 2017 E-Class arrives in Detroit next week. The MB video below highlights the development of the 10th-gen E-class, which has a ton of autonomous tech that has been well tested. Apparently the team of 1,200 engineers conducted 10,000 autonomous braking tests and 5,000 autonomous lane changes to get it right. Which probably has a lot to do with why Vegas is now betting heavily on MB.