Ride in Mercedes’s F 015 Driverless Car | Molly Wood | The New York Times

(music)

Wood: I got to ride along in the F 015

which is Mercedes' concept for

the autonomous luxury vehicle

of the future.

And this vehicle is so autonomous

that anyone in the car can operate it.

(music)

Looking at this car, and waiting
to get inside,

I already have the feeling of being
on a movie set.

It is clearly a concept,
and a far out concept at that.

-We can bring the car through the

parking precision with P, and also

you can pick up the car.

-Here it comes.

(music)

Blue lights mean autonomous. White
lights mean you're driving yourself.

I'm sure all the pedestrians will
totally figure that out.

Car: Please go ahead
Wood:(laughs)

Wood: I'm going. It said it was ok.

(music with tambourine)

-When I say ok, then you have
the conducting rights

-I have the conducting rights.

So anyone in the car can potentially
conduct as long as they request access

from the driver, which means any of the

four of us could be the driver.

This particular concept vehicle is not
currently equipped with all the sensors

to make it an autonomous car,

so we're driving a pre-programmed route,

but the goal is that it the long run,

this will be a fully autonomous,

self driving car.

One of the goals of this car is that you

can create an interior experience

that's maybe different from the exterior.

So you can have nice pictures if
you're stuck in traffic

or you're in an industrial area.
But then the

pictures themselves are all controlled

by touch screens. This center console

is part of this shared space idea.

The idea that you could all be

riding in the car together,
and you could make this table come out.

It has various proximity capabilities.

So if your friends are sharing their

location, you might see a screen that

pops up that shows their pictures if

they're close by.

There are other sort of futuristic
technologies built in,

like this beam cam,

which actually shows this exterior

view of the car. But then you could

share that.

(music with vocal)

(techno music)

It's all very far out sounding,

but it's all based on

technology that mostly exists today.

(futuristic music)

(music)