A four-wheeled vision of gleaming silver glides toward me, shining brightly under the warm California sun. The vehicle looks otherworldly against the empty backdrop of the former naval base in Alameda, a site perhaps more famous for Mythbusters stunts than automobile demonstrations. This, however, is no ordinary automobile.
The curvature of metal heading in my direction is more reminiscent of zeppelins and supersonic spacecraft; the stuff of childhood dreams and science fiction. This is the Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion, a concept car representing the future of autonomous vehicles. And I'm about to go for a ride in it.
If this seems familiar to you, that's because it was already unveiled earlier this year. It even won our Best of CES award in the automotive category. The conceit behind the F 015 is this: What would a car look and feel like in a future where driving is no longer the sole purpose of having one? When you don't need to keep your eyes on the road, what would you do differently? And when pedestrians can no longer make eye contact with drivers, how will they know when to cross the road? These questions are all central to the design and philosophy of the F 015, which is less about self-driving technology than it is a thought experiment on how autonomous driving will fit in our collective future.
Indeed, the demonstration vehicle in front of me isn't even fully autonomous; it's programmed only to go along a predetermined path on the Alameda runway. Still, the car isn't without technological marvels. "You know KITT? With David Hasselhoff?" asks Klaus Millerferli, a researcher for Mercedes-Benz, a few minutes before our demonstration. "I'll call it over like that." Rather than using a Comlink watch to summon our ride, however, Millerferli takes out his iPhone and launches an app.
He taps in the number of passengers -- there are four of us -- to tell the car how many doors to open, and then taps a button to beckon it over. As the car makes its way to us, Millerferli points out that the LEDs are blue, which indicates the car is in autonomous mode. If someone were behind the wheel manually driving the car, the light would be white.
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