Speech delivered by Stefan Buchner, Head of Mercedes-Benz Trucks, at the VDA International Press Workshop in Frankfurt
How do we actually come to conclude everything that a vehicle of tomorrow could be? If we think about the truck of the future, we rely on many sources: our future research department, our advanced engineering, our customers, our drivers, and our sales and service network. We do that because we want to understand as much as possible about what our customers will need in the future.
Because having this understanding is crucial! This is how we set our course for success or failure in the next decade – for our customers and our brand alike. That’s why it’s so important to ask the right questions and then, of course, to develop the right solutions. Solutions that add value to our customers.
We focus on three topics in particular. Because that’s what matters most in trucks: efficiency, safety and uptime.
I’ll begin with the topic of efficiency. Under that we include fuel consumption and emissions! And here, above all, we ask ourselves the following questions: What helps our customers in an industry where every single penny is more important than ever? How can we support them, with increasingly stringent CO2 requirements or imminent entry bans? What can we offer so that our customers can still do their work reliably – such as, for example, supply supermarkets and hospitals, keeping our cities clean, and much more.
With a little effort we can achieve great savings by further improving not only the powertrain, but the overall vehicle, including aerodynamics. For example, we could easily get rid of wind catchers like the exterior mirrors.
Another point of departure for more efficiency is: “Intelligence!” We already support our drivers today with Predictive Powertrain Control. That means the truck proactively brakes and accelerates. So far, this is only possible on highways and major roads.
A next possible step would be for the truck to process high-resolution road maps to use Predictive Powertrain Control in the inner city as well. Or imagine the truck recognizes traffic signs and engages the appropriate shifting strategy.
Of course, we’re also thinking about alternative drives. We still don’t see a hybrid truck in there. Because with our diesel engine we’re already in a similar range of fuel savings and thus CO2 reduction, thanks to the efficiency measures on our components and to the savings potential of systems such as PPC. And in purely economic terms this pays off much more for our customers!
That’s why we’re fully concentrating on the electric truck. You know our eActros innovation fleet. The first vehicles are certified, and we will report on them again during the year. So much for the questions and answers we had in mind for the topic of efficiency.
That brings us to the second topic: Safety! Mercedes-Benz Trucks has always set the pace and standards here. And that will remain so in the future! Because we take the topic very seriously. The number of people killed by truck accidents has fallen by over 60 per cent over the past three decades.
For the future, above all else, we now face two questions: How can we protect the weakest participant in traffic – the human being – even better? And how can we take some burden off the driver, particularly in long-hauls and on long, monotonous routes, and thereby further increase safety.
The answer to the first question is to give the driver a better field of vision. This can be done by removing the existing visual barriers – we think once again of those very large exterior mirrors.
If we then also intelligently link data from sensors and radar systems, we can further increase the field of view: The driver could then see to the end of the trailer – and not as before only the first third. With intelligently linked sensor and radar data, the truck of the future can protect pedestrians even better in dangerous situations: The vehicle no longer just warns, but independently initiates full emergency braking.
Let’s go now to the highway. Here it’s about preventing rear-end collisions. And the same applies to unintentionally leaving the lane, for example, due to tiredness. The solution again lies in intelligent assistance systems. That means we turn over the wheel to the truck to take the burden off the driver on monotonous stretches. In doing so, we no longer just allow the truck to accelerate and brake – we also let it keep its own distance and drive curves.
I think you know where I’m going with my remarks: Level 2 of automated driving. In our mind that is definitely possible in the next truck generation.
Now let’s look at the questions and answers surrounding our third topic: The availability of a truck! Because every minute the vehicle is not in use, the customer loses money. Therefore, the key question in the future continues to be how we can further increase the uptime of our trucks. And the most important answer is: Through the intelligent use of data.
Our most successful example is Mercedes-Benz Uptime. For over one-and-a-half years this system has been helping our customers to significantly increase the availability of their trucks by means of real-time data analysis. In just four minutes, the system detects a critical condition in the vehicle and makes a maintenance or repair recommendation. When software updates are necessary we can already install some of them today using “Flash over the Air”.
This “live update” via WLAN could be used for much more in the future. For example, to automatically program in maximum speeds when crossing the border – or to disable stolen vehicles.
With connectivity there’s much more to come. It plays the decisive role for the truck of the future, because it acts like few technologies before – as a massive accelerator for the efficiency, safety, and the uptime of a truck.
Connectivity also helps with another question that our customers regularly ask themselves: How do we counteract the impending lack of drivers? There are already around 45,000 more truck drivers required in Germany alone. That number is expected to triple by the beginning of 2020. So there is a great need to take action!
We can help here by making work in the truck as comfortable as possible. Above all, we want to reduce the complexity of operating the truck. The number of digital applications will increase significantly, especially due to assistance and safety systems such as fleet management and logistics tools. The driver does not have the time to spend hours reading instructions. He wants to have a simple system that he can operate intuitively.
In order to fulfil this wish, we want to make all operating elements similar to a tablet or smartphone. Everyone knows this logic! In addition, the driver of a Mercedes-Benz truck should also be able to arrange displays and controls in a way that makes the most sense to him or her. The whole thing is saved as a profile – and can be accessed in any fleet vehicle. So, no matter which truck our driver drives, he or she is instantly familiar with the controls.
The truck of the future will answer many open questions. It will be more efficient, safer and more reliable than ever. Above all, it will score points with intelligence and inner values. That may be the key difference from before.