Mercedes-Benz and Google unveil partnership on navigation
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Mercedes-Benz recentl revealed its new partnership with Google, which will help the company significantly boost its navigational capabilities. According to the partnership announcement, the two will now be capable of enabling “supercomputer-like performance” in every Mercedes-Benz car.
The cars will supposedly have automated driving sensors, as well, in an attempt to make Mercedes-Benz a new rival to Tesla, as well as Chinese newcomers, who quickly started taking a significant share of the market.
Tesla still remains the pioneer and the most dominant force when it comes to software-powered features, electric cars, charging stations network, and many other aspects of modern vehicles. However, this did not discourage the competitors. Quite the opposite — most are now inspired to match and outperform the US EV giant, including both new and old automakers.
A rapid development of autonomous driving and other features
Better software that powers the vehicles means better performance, greater battery range, updated self-driving capabilities, and more. The partnership with Google will give Mercedes-Benz the edge it needs to potentially rival Tesla. Furthermore, the German carmaker said that it would share revenue with Nvidia Corp, one of the leading semiconductor maker.
The two have been partners since 2020, working on automated driving software in order to reduce the upfront cost of purchasing highly expensive high-powered semiconductors, according to Mercedes-Benz’s CEO, Ola Kaellenius.
He said that one would only pay for a heavily subsidized chip, and then find a way to maximize joint revenue. According to him, this would sunk the cost, even if drivers did not turn on every feature that the chip allows.
However, only those customers that pay for a package with extra options would have their cars equipped with the Lidar sensor technology and other additional hardware that enables Level 3 of automated driving. This would still have a higher variable cost, as a result.
Luminar Technologies — a self-driving sensor producer in which Mercedes owns a small stake — also commented yesterday, saying that it managed to secure a multi-billion dollar deal with the German automaker. The deal will allow Luminar to integrate its sensors across a wide range of vehicles over the next few years. The announcement immediately sent the company’s shares up by more than 25%.
As for Mercedes, it said that its partnership with Google will allow it to offer traffic information in real time, and it would allow the cars to reroute automatically if a more favorable path to the selected destination is detected.
Not only that, but drivers would also be able to use the car’s entertainment system to watch YouTube when the vehicle is parked, or if they have Level 3 autonomous driving mode. This means that the drivers would be able to take their eyes off the wheel on certain roads, as long as they can immediately resume control if necessary.
