Mercedes Concept Designers Render Luxury in Motion

Mercedes-Benz founders Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler invented the automobile as we know it as individuals.

Today their successors work in large teams, equipped with the most sophisticated electronic equipment to deliver the “autonomobile” of the future, as anticipated by the F 015 self-driving concept car unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

However, the sophisticated technology that drives the new prototype must be communicated to the public through design.

Explains Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche: “Anyone who focuses solely on the technology has not yet grasped how autonomous driving will change our society. The car is growing beyond its role as a mere means of transport and will ultimately become a mobile living space.”

Gorden Wagener, 49, vice president in charge of Mercedes-Benz Design, could not agree more.

In an interview with WardsAuto, Wagener discusses the F 015’s innovations and the designers' attempts to prepare for a mobility revolution.

WardsAuto: Discuss what inspired the designers and how they succeeded in translating concepts into shapes and function.

Wagener: Our aim was to design a luxurious vehicle with a lounge-like ambience combining sensuality with purity in a very special way. The design had to appeal equally to the intellect and to the emotions and its exterior had to signal its visionary and pioneering character at first glance. Its password was, and is, luxury in motion.

WardsAuto: The overall length of the F 015 is much shorter (9.2 ins. [233 mm]) than the longest luxury car in the Mercedes-Benz range, the S-Class Maybach, and yet the Autonomous Drive Concept F 015 looks much bigger with its new and impressive proportions. How did you achieve this?

Wagener: Indeed this impression is created by its unusual proportions (length, 205.5 ins. [5,220 mm]; width, 83 ins. [2,108 mm]; height, 60 ins. [1,524 mm]), its very long (142.1 ins. [3,610 mm] wheelbase and its elongated mono volume architecture. The total integration of its profile that we call the Space Flow is revolutionary. The taut line runs from the grille over the roof and into the tail to integrate the classic components – bonnet, cabin and boot – into one monolithic and sculptured volume.

WardsAuto: However, there is much more than just size and architecture. The surface design and the graphic treatment certainly are part of the new design language. Which vocabulary did you apply?

Wagener: We were able to create the monolithic appearance of the exterior – as if hewn from a single piece – by doing without conventional windscreen and window design. The flush-fitting side windows have an almost mirror-like appearance thanks to their extremely finely-patterned surface. As they are close in color to the cool, technical appearance of the paint finish of the bodywork, the transition from the windows to the bodywork is almost imperceptible.

In addition, there are neither exterior mirrors nor visible A-, B- or C-pillars to interfere with the overall impression of a sensual, object-like sculpture. Likewise, the door system is barely perceptible thanks to its fine lines.

WardsAuto: What about the interior design? Is it still a cabin or is it, rather, a luxurious lounge?

Wagener: Because of the new powertrain and technical layout, in designing the interior we had the freedom to create generous space with a luxurious, modern lounge character and we focused on comfort and an extraordinary sense of space.

The lounge chairs, through the contrasting white soft leather and highly polished aluminum materials used, convey this fusion of sensuality with clarity in a particularly striking way. And the innovative door system, with its wide-opening doors that open out the other way to conventional doors, provides the link between exterior and interior in a very concrete way.

WardsAuto: Yet there is a lot more in your lounge, plenty of monitors and displays.

Wagener: Sure, we live in a connected world and the displays integrated all around allow for nonstop, all-round exchange of information and interaction linking the analog and digital worlds together.

WardsAuto: Speaking of information and interaction, does the exterior design also play a role?

Wagener: Yes,  there is no doubt that the front-end design speaks of an entirely new kind of vehicle. All lighting functions are combined within a dominant Mercedes radiator grille contour. This gives us the opportunity to widen the grille as a trademark across the entire front as a stand-alone styling element, as well as a digital display, at the same time.

All round, the three-dimensional LED fields provide different lighting functions and the intelligent vehicle uses them to communicate and interact with the outside world. For example, they show whether the vehicle is currently in blue – autonomous – driving mode or white – manual – driving mode, or when a pedestrian is detected on the edge of the road. The large LED module at the rear offers the same communication capability for traffic following the vehicle.