MOTORING: High-tech ESF safety concept car coming mid2019 to showcase life-saving safety tec
| The Independent |The idea of zero road deaths sounds like a pipe dream. But Mercedes Benz says an uncrashable car is possible. That’s the opinion Mercedes Benz global R&D chief, Ola Kalennius, who is excited about his new ESF (formerly ESV), or Experimental Safety Vehicle.
“Safety is the core DNA of Mercedes and the ultimate goal is zero accidents in traffic,” said Ola Kalennius.
In an interview with Australian media at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, where autonomous and even flying cars were in abundance, Kalennius confirmed that a new ESF would be revealed mid2019.
Improvements in autonomous driving tech and collision prevention are expected, as are new occupant protection systems designed to reduce injury in the advent of a car crash.
“Things like autonomous driving and sophisticated driver assistance are all enablers to reduce traffic accidents. Because virtually all traffic accidents are human error,” he said.
The idea is that if cars are controlled by constantly-learning AI and a huge amount of cloud computing brawn that can see all things at all times, no one should die while riding inside a car.
It is not known if the new ESF will be a concept car like this, the Mercedes-Benz IAA Concept, or based on the new S-Class production car but Kalennius said the new concept car will be a jaw dropper.
He suggested many of its safety features are almost showroom ready.
“Having been in engineering for a couple of years, I’m absolutely amazed at the ingenuity and creativity of the engineers. It never stops. We will do something in the middle of this year, to demonstrate what the future of safety is going to look like.”
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