First Drive: Mercedes-Benz F015 concept

The fact is, however, this remarkable car has been pretty much touring the world since it first appeared on the Las Vegas strip at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2015. That's pretty old hat for a research car, but such was the significance of the F015 that the questions it raised two and a half years ago are only now beginning to be looked at by legislators. For F015 actually assumed we'd banned petrol and diesel and that we'd cracked self-driving cars, too, though at the same show, Dr Dieter Zetsche, Mercedes chief executive, warned about unanswered questions of the ethics, safety, legal responsibilities and logistics of robotised autonomous cars and machine learning. What F015 was designed to do, however, was look at the far future of personal transportation and in particular, luxury motoring, Mercedes-Benz style.

So it prognosticated new forms of communications within and without the vehicle and a road system where the car could drive itself in close proximity to vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. In the cabin, the steering could be telescoped in and out of the dashboard depending on whether the car was driving itself or not. In self-driving mode, the front seats could be spun round to face the rears and each interior door card was a huge touch screen giving information on routes, a sort of rolling travelogue and also diagrammatic locations of your family and friends, which was slightly creepy.

The largely button-free dashboard was controlled with eye-tracking technology and hand gestures; you looked at icons to select a function and adjusted it with a hand sweep. Most of that worked, as did the translucent side windows, which could also be used as display screens showing lush forests, or sea views as opposed to the M25.

On the outside, the F015's lamps played an important part in its external communication, with blue lights indicating the car was driving autonomously and white that it was being driven manually. All-round monitoring was via long and short-wave radar, microwave and stereoscopic cameras, and the LED grille and lamps would ‘communicate’ with other road users and pedestrians by swivelling towards them to show the car's system's awareness of their presence, even indicating to pedestrians when it was safe to cross in front.

Being a full autonomous car, the F015 could drive itself off to park and be summoned again with a mobile phone or even a smart watch. In many respects, it was an advanced take on the 2001 Toyota/Sony Pod concept, which communicated similarly showing its driver's stress levels with different coloured lamps and wagging its radio aerial like a dog's tail.

Under the skin, the F015's driveline was based on that of the 2011 F125 research vehicle. The 120Kw fuel cell and 29kWh lithium-ion battery was fuelled with 5.4kg of gaseous hydrogen stored in carbon-fibre tanks providing a range of up 621 miles. Twin 131bhp electric motors powered the rear wheels, providing a top speed of 124mph and 0-62mph acceleration in 6.7 seconds. Most of this technology, however, was never actually fitted, nor any self-driving technology, so on a short passenger ride round Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands in Surrey, the electric motor whines and this remarkable concept trundles along feeling more related to a milk float than an S-class. In fact, Mercedes-Benz current E-class is a more advanced self-driver than the F015, but it doesn't matter.

For like most research projects, F015's technology was speculative and the public doesn't appear to have cared one jot. Thomas Jäger, electro-technical engineer, who's accompanied the car on some of its farther-flung journeys, says that families have flocked to see the car, intrigued by the technology and the questions it raises. It's been seen by over 300,000 people in its 36-month odyssey, which seems extraordinary, indeed shortly after our passenger ride, it was crated up and flown to Sydney in Australia.  

"We didn't want people's lives to stop when they stepped into the car," says Jäger. "The F015 meant: space, freedom; and privacy and the public have totally understood that."

The commodification of the automobile implicit with electric drivetrains and autonomous driving poses a huge threat to luxury car makers. A future of scuttling, pod-like driverless taxis, puts at risk much of the luxurious contract of speed, power, freedom and swank implicit when you buy a premium automobile. What F015 did was posit a potentially highly desirable Mercedes-Benz, which could drive itself in the most environmental fashion, but when the occasion arose, could also be driven manually. Perhaps that's one reason for its popularity, however good your car is at negotiating clutch-pumping jams on its own, on the right road and at the right time, people still want to get behind the wheel. 

The Numbers

Engine: Hydrogen fuel cell with lithium-ion battery and twin electric motors

Transmission: single speed step down gear, rear-wheel drive

Bhp/lb ft: 120kW fuel cell, 29kW battery 131bhp electric motors

0-62mph: 6.7sec

Top speed: 124mph

Range: 621 miles

Price as tested: unstated, see text