Mercedes’ advanced safety technology has 25 years to end all road accidents

“So if we launch automated driving in CLA coming next year, it will be the most complex system we’ve ever built. Any new generation of Mercedes is the safest we have ever created because technology never stops.”

This will be on top of the systems we tested today. It’s no surprise that the company predicts that the number of people killed and seriously injured in crashes involving Mercedes will halve this decade. And it will be a welcome contribution to efforts to reduce the number of accidents that change lives around the world.

A tour of the incredible Mercedes test track in Immendingen.

Where can you climb ramps so steep that the asphalt surface can slide off, up 180-meter-high mountain peaks, and then onto the highway that runs from France to China? At the Mercedes test site in Immendingen, opened in 2018.

Mercedes has turned a former military facility, just over an hour’s drive south of Stuttgart, into a 520-hectare vehicle testing base. Off-road, high-speed bowl, hot and cold weather chambers, and wet and dry control circuits are among the extensive testing areas at the proving ground. And road markings, signs and conditions imitate roads from all over the world.

Up to 400 prototypes can be tested simultaneously, all equipped with devices that transmit their location and speed via Mercedes’ private LTE network. There’s a huge autonomous driving test facility here, where engineers simulate traffic scenarios and even use mobile rain and snow plows to test sensors in harsh weather conditions. Test water is stored in 36,000-tub tanks.

Mercedes built a city center with a 500-car garage to test its cars on city streets. Everything is looked after by sheep cutting the grass, llamas protecting them from foxes, nesting areas for larks and wildlife corridors allowing animals (including a wandering lynx) to pass by safely. This is the ideal environmentally friendly platform to shape the future of Mercedes.

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