Mercedes Benz F 015 Luxury

The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion.

The Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion research car and its immersive user experience is an innovative perspective into the future of mobility.

Shared space in tomorrow's world.

In order to provide a foundation for the new autonomous F 015 Luxury in Motion research vehicle, an interdisciplinary team of experts from Mercedes-Benz has devised a future scenario that incorporates many different aspects of day-to-day mobility. Above and beyond its mobility function, this scenario perceives the motor car as a private retreat that additionally offers an important added value for society at large.

“Anyone who focuses solely on the technology has not yet grasped how autonomous driving will change our society,” emphasises Dr Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. “The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space.”

Expressive forerunner of a mobility revolution.

The visionary research vehicle Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion was born, a vehicle which raises comfort and luxury to a new level by offering a maximum of space and a lounge character on the inside. Every facet of the F 015 Luxury in Motion is the utmost reflection of the Mercedes way of interpreting the terms “modern luxury”, emotion and intelligence.

This innovative four-seater is a forerunner of a mobility revolution, and this is immediately apparent from its futuristic appearance. Sensuousness and clarity, the core elements of the Mercedes-Benz design philosophy, combine to create a unique, progressive aesthetic appeal.

A luxury lounge providing maximum comfort.

Sensual, flowing transitions and warm, organic materials such as open-pore walnut wood, which has been shaped to a three-dimensional veneer, and extremely soft ice-white nappa leather contrast with clearly-defined metal and glass surfaces with a cool and technical feel. The transitions between organic, metal and synthetic materials have been designed using matrix graphics; and the flowing transitions deliver a new, unparalleled feeling of bounteous space. The light-coloured fine wood used for the floor, for example, flows almost imperceptibly into the cool Plexiglass of the side panels thanks to their unusual surface matrix.

The interior as a digital living space.

One core theme of the innovative interior concept is a continuous exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world. Six displays are installed to this end all around, tastefully mounted in the instrument panel and the rear and side walls, making the interior of the F 015 Luxury in Motion a digital living space – a perfect symbiosis of the virtual and the real world. Passengers are able to interact intuitively with the connected vehicle by means of gestures or by touching the high-resolution screens.

Visual and acoustic signals for greater safety.

The F 015 Luxury in Motion communicates with its surroundings both visually and acoustically. Large LED displays at the front and rear as well as a laser projection system directed toward the front are responsible for the visual part, while the acoustic communication repertoire includes both sounds and specific spoken instructions.

Mercedes-Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion concept has made its debut at an auto show in Detroit during 2015 NAIAS.
It's perhaps one of the most interesting concepts exhibited this year at the North American International Auto Show and Mercedes-Benz describes it as a "self-driving luxury sedan". Since the car takes care of getting you from point A to point B, the interior cabin was designed to be like a lounge with rotating chairs that can face one another while the six individual displays provide all the necessary controls to access the vehicle's functions. Getting inside the cabin should be a breeze thanks to a 90-degree angle opening of the doors and the absence of a B pillar.
Power comes from a plug-in hydrogen fuel cell electric arrangement consisting of two electric motors mounted at the back producing a combined output of 268 bhp & 294 lb-ft sent to the rear axle. It has received lithium-ion battery cells providing enough juice for 124 miles (200 km) while the hydrogen necessary to produce electricity while on the move is stored in 5.4 kg tanks.

The system is basically an evolution of the hardware found in the 2011 F 125! research vehicle and in this latest application it allows the F 015 Luxury in Motion concept to hit 62 mph (100 km/h) in 6.7 seconds before topping out at an electronically-capped 124 mph (200 km/h). When used as a plug-in hybrid, the concept has a maximum range of up to 684 miles (1,100 km).

Mercedes-Benz took the wraps off a new concept car here at CES this week, and considering the setting, it's appropriately loaded to the gills with technology. The F 015 Luxury in Motion — yes, "Luxury in Motion" is part of the car's name — is basically a sleek pod with a huge passenger compartment, a fortuitous side effect of an imagined future where we spend most of our times chilling out in cars while they drive us around all by themselves. Mercedes actually calls the cabin "lounge-like," thanks to four rotating seats that can face each other. An array of screens throughout the car let passengers interact with controls and entertainment, supporting not-quite-production features like gestures and eye tracking.
One notable feature is the pair of "LED fields" at the front and rear that change color based on the car's current driving mode: white in manual, blue in autonomous. It seems innocuous enough, but it's easy to imagine a future where everyone around you wants to know whether you're driving or your car is — pedestrians, law enforcement, and so on.

The F 015 is relatively light for its size thanks to extensive use of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), a material that BMW is using on its high-concept i3 and i8 models. The CFRP goes all the way to drivetrain, in fact: the car runs on hydrogen, and the tanks are made of it. Considering how strong hydrogen tanks need to be in order to survive a crash, that's a vote of confidence.
Toyota, which just announced earlier today that it's opening up thousands of hydrogen and fuel cell patents to try to spur interest in the technology, will undoubtedly be pleased to see that Mercedes is showing a new hydrogen concept here at the show. Infrastructure remains a challenge, though: the network of refueling stations necessary to make these cars viable simply doesn't exist yet.