An Autonomous Mercedes Could Be at Your Beck and Call

Since there is a market share to be had, Mercedes is looking to compete with Uber and dive feet first into the on-demand limousine business. One wrinkle though, the chauffeurs won’t actually have any feet.

At a Mercedes pre-show event in Frankfurt this week, Daimler head honcho, Dieter Zetsche, outlined the company’s vision for a fleet of autonomous premium transport vehicles that would take over the roads in the not-so-distant future.

Zetsche thinks the business could build on what they’ve learned from Daimler’s car-sharing service, car2go, which allows you to look at your smartphone and locate one of their cute little cars nearby. Then you go grab the car2go, drive it wherever you want, and leave it wherever you want.

“It would be even more convenient if the car came to you autonomously,” said Zetsche, according to Newsweek. “And it would be extremely practical if the car2go appeared without needing to be prompted, once my appointment in the calendar had come to an end.”

That would be convenient. And kind of mind blowing too. Plus, we’re talking premium autonomous rides here. Luxury rides. Real Corinthian Leather rides. Which is not what you get with car2go.

As we’ve already seen, Mercedes pretty much has the autonomous technology in place. But there’s a lot of red tape that’s preventing driverless cars from hitting the streets, which probably won’t be cut till at least 2025.

Still, Mercedes looks like they’ll be ready.

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Via [Newsweek]