When the strip becomes a timeline
The Eiffel Tower more beautiful than the original, the pyramids just a stone's throw away from St. Mark's Square in Venice and in between the skyscrapers of New York: In Las Vegas in nothing, it seems. This also applies to local public transport, for one night. Because during the CES the visionary Mercedes Urbanetic got lost on the legendary Strip.
It's well past midnight and even on the Las Vegas Strip it's getting quiet. The last night owls stagger out of the casinos and the late shift of the amusement ladies sneaks home tiredly. Only in front of the planet Hollywood is hell going on, everyone stops, stares at the street and pulls out his camera phone. Because there is a car, as you have never seen it in Las Vegas: the Mercedes Vision Urbanetic has the honor and launches four months after its premiere at the Commercial Vehicle Show in Hanover on the maiden voyage on the Las Vegas Boulevard.
The electrically powered and autonomously controlled robo van fits perfectly into the neon night of Nevada for two reasons. Firstly, because in the dazzling gamblers' metropolis, it is always and everywhere about attracting attention and drawing everyone's attention. And the suppository on wheels with its round-sucked shape and the dazzling lighting of the shimmering silver body succeeds better than all the stretch limousines and super sports cars that you can see here in dozens on every corner. And on the other hand, the Urbanetic is the ideal means of transport for the many party people who stroll up and down the strip evening after evening and don't feel like an overpriced and shabby taxi.
Instead, in the vision of the Mercedes designers, they will simply pick up their smartphones, enter their destination and only a few minutes later the Urbanetic will whirr and open its large sliding door. Then it goes into a bright and spacious cabin, depending on the ride you use one of the five comfortable lounge seats on red leather or the slightly less comfortable, gray-held seats in the bow, for which a bank was mounted, where once was the cockpit , Or you just stand in the middle and wait for the door to close again and the Sprinter to start moving again the day after tomorrow as if by magic.
It feels a bit spooky, because you can no longer influence the ride. But first, this is exactly the same in the city bus. And secondly, the van is so quiet and so smooth and smooth that you relax with each passing meter, marveling at the skyline through the panoramic roof and focusing more and more on the rotating displays, the sights or the next stop on the dynamic Inform the determined route. The fact that no one is sitting in the front anymore and driving the load or at least correcting the autopilot has long since been forgotten.
That is scary enough. But this idea is no longer really new. After all, at the electronics trade fair CES there are certainly half a dozen such autonomous shuttles in all shapes and formats, and they are already in use on the first company and university campuses. But Mercedes thinks the idea of the robo-van a round further and is the first manufacturer to flirt with a swap body. Within minutes, a driverless shuttle bus for up to 12 passengers becomes an Amazon van with autopilot. The Swabians want to increase the efficiency of their fleets, avoid the downtime of expensive vehicles and at the same time drastically reduce the number of vans and buses that clog the streets in the megacities of tomorrow.
The basis for this is a kind of skateboard that connects the electrically driven axles with a battery integrated in the base plate and contains the technology for autonomous driving with two sensors that slide out of the body like insect eyes. On top of that, you can either strap on a kind of huge Rimowa suitcase, which has a load volume of ten cubic meters, has space for ten europallets and, with an automatic conveyor system and an externally accessible flap, also enables mobile package delivery. Or you can equip the skateboard with a bus module: Drawn like a silver Fabergé egg with diamond drops for the window, this cabin offers eight seats and four standing spaces, each with different comfort for each journey duration, as well as a new infotainment concept that also the smartphone of Involving users: For those who have loaded the matching app, the Urbanetic with augmented reality technology plays personalized information in real time on the display as soon as the mobile phone is directed to a certain point in the car or outside the window.
A self-learning IT infrastructure determines and plans which structure is currently being used and when and where the vehicles are on the move, which records supply and demand in real time and optimally adjusts resources to meet requirements. Thus, in favor of the traffic flow empty runs and in favor of the balance of the fleet operator standstill should be avoided. Apart from the charging time and the few minutes for the largely automated change between box body and robo-shuttle, the Urbanetic in the Mercedes vision is therefore used for 24 hours.
That would work perfectly in Las Vegas too. Because there is so much going on there during the day and late into the night, it gets quiet in the very early hours of the morning. And that the cargo structure looks like a safe or a suitcase on wheels also fits quite well. Somehow and eventually the money from the casinos has to be collected.
Benjamin Bessinger / SP-X