Proof that solutions aren’t always pretty.
German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz is leaping headlong into the world of autonomous vehicles, and while we’ve gotten used to concepts from Stuttgart that either redefine luxury, put your living room on wheels, will show you a movie as you travel or all three put together, what we haven’t seen from Mercedes-Benz in a while is a multi-purpose concept vehicle that fits the demands of a modern, autonomously-driven society.
The Mercedes-Benz Urbanetic concept is specifically that. Using the ‘electric skateboard’ architecture that’s prevalent in the world of electric vehicles, the Urbanetic allows itself to be customised based on situational demands: It could be a cargo van one minute and a people-mover the next, thanks to its modular design that allows everything above the wheel arches to be detached and swapped out.
So let’s assume you’re not in short-haul or last-mile logistics. You’re more worried about personal transport, getting from A-to-B. The Urbanetic can be outfitted with a passenger module and turned into either a shared ride or even a small shuttle bus, that can seat a dozen people at its maximum while providing great views out.
But what if you ARE in short-haul logistics? Then snap on a cargo body, and you’ll be able to bring 10 European-sized pallets inside. It’s posited that the flexibility of Urbanetic would permit companies to be equally flexible: If DHL and Uber had a baby, they wouldn’t need two sets of cars to serve their very-different customers.
The fact that the Urbanetic is autonomous also solves another issue: The DHL-Uber lovechild wouldn’t need to share a roof, as the electric skateboard platform can travel on its own without a module attached, presumably to get a module fitted.
Of course, Mercedes didn’t go into great detail as to how one would go about swapping the bodies, but they said a fully-automated process would only take a few minutes to complete the task. With the passenger module in place, the built-in displays and lights would inform the world around it that the Urbanetic is entirely aware of what’s going on.
What Mercedes was also pretty tight-lipped about is its rationale for making its passenger module so hideous. We can understand why the cargo-hauling module looks like a butter dish, but can someone please explain why the passenger module looks like bacterial growth, or like an alien baby bursting out of its host? Presumably the ‘swappable’ upper portion of the Urbanetic concept means that no one would be strictly demanded to use such a hideous module. Presumably. Hopefully.
For the best deals on real, less-ugly Mercedes-Benz cars, check out our Showroom.
