Automated drive test Mercedes-Benz coming to New Zealand

Mercedes-Benz is looking to New Zealand this year during development of future automated-drive models.

A vehicle fitted with the factory’s latest active safety and advanced driver-assistance systems is on Australian roads, covering up to 100,000km over the next year and gathering data on different road conditions and configurations, Stuff reports.

Mercedes-Benz Australia intends bringing the car here this year.

Its German engineers, led by Jochen Haab, manager of validation and communication for active safety and assistance systems, was in Australia in March setting up the car.

“This opportunity allows us to further test in a new right-hand-drive market with good roads, signage and varying conditions with close proximity of urban areas,” Haab told Stuff.

The test equipment has been fitted to an E-class sedan. It has the same expanded automated-drive capability as the updated S-class, due for launch mid-year.

“I would call it more than a prototype car,” Haab says. “It’s a pre-launch vehicle. The software applied to this car is already cleared for production.”

Short term, Haab says the Australasian data will be used to “turn the small knobs that we can still adjust for the S-class” prior to production later this year. But in the bigger picture, it will be an important component of the ongoing development towards autonomous driving.

The team is keen to experience Kiwi road conditions. Gravel roads are out at this stage though. Haab says Mercedes-Benz’s assistance systems are designed for paved roads, although they could technically handle unsealed ones.
The Australasian test programme is part of an ongoing global project.

Mercedes-Benz began collecting data around adaptive cruise control seven years ago. In that time 170 company vehicles have covered nine million kilometres in the hands of 4600 different drivers. Half a million “events” have been recorded, with 200,000 analysed in detail.