Mercedes-Benz recently announced it would shift operations to building electric vehicles (EVs), though it no longer plans to develop an autonomous driving system like Tesla’s full self-driving.
On Monday, Teslarati reported that Mercedes-Benz announced it would no longer pursue efforts to develop its full-self driving program, originally announced in 2015. The announcement comes five years after the company released the F-015 Luxury in Motion, a research vehicle that was to be equipped with full self-driving.
The news also comes after the company’s pilot project demo in Stuttgart Airport, involving an S-Class that searched and found a suitable parking spot without the help of its driver.
@elonmusk @Tesla Sounds like Mercedes-Benz will be laying off their self-driving division. Might be a good time to add some new people to your team. https://t.co/yS2aRFMUBW
— Blue Texan (@shonnburton) October 26, 2020
Regarding the company’s future in full self-driving vehicles, anonymous Mercedes-Benz spokesman told the press, “We don’t compete in any race that we can no longer win.”
In a statement, Mercedes-Benz head Ola Källenius said that the company preferred to simply focus on the numbers.
Källenius said, “The conversion to a mobility provider is a thing of the past. We will move away from it again.” He continued, “You can’t make money with offers like car sharing. Our investors not only expect sales, but also above all profit.”
While the announcement is certainly surprising, it’s hard to deny that the internet is freaking out right now over Tesla’s newly-released full self-driving beta – and rightly so.
Update: Sascha Pallenberg, the Head of Digital Transformation at Daimler AG, says this story is “pure bogus”:
https://twitter.com/sascha_p/status/1320806635359608837?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
