Transforming the

Landscape

of Mobility

Interview with Alexander Mankowsky, Daimler

Autonomous cars and the road to relaxation

It was the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, where self-driving cars made by teams from all over the world competed against

each other, that awoke Alexander Mankowsky’s fascination for 'Autonomous Mobility'. The goal of the competition was to

traverse a 60-mile obstacle course in less than six hours while observing the Californian traffic regulations – a real challenge

in those days! Today, eight years later, the developments in this field have long become critical to the future of an entire

industry. The race between OEMs such as Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen and tech giants like Google, Apple and Baidu to

produce the first series of self-driving cars is in full swing.

Alexander Mankowsky is a part of this development. As a knowledge engineer and future researcher, he analyses the

interactions between mobility and society. His field, “Culture and the Car” is integral to Daimler's R&D department. The vision

of self-driving cars is certainly not only a question for the distant future anymore. Just this year, Daimler has sent the first self-

driving truck for testing in the streets of Nevada, Google has already racked up more than 1 million test kilometers with its

autonomous fleet and Great Britain is running several regional pilot projects with automatic transport systems – the so-called

‘low-speed autonomous transport systems’ (L SATS).

To clarify why we should be looking forward to the new age of autonomous mobility and how we as a society can

intelligently make the transition to this new technology, Automotive IQ spoke to Alexander Mankowsky.

Mr. Mankowsky, what exactly do you believe is the fascination with autonomous driving?

These days, people are more mobile than ever before. There are always more opportunities for mobility. And this diversity,

especially in an ever denser environment, produces a lot of stress. And every bit of stress relief – this starts with assistance

systems and ends with fully automatic vehicles, but also with information systems like Google – everything that takes away

stress is gratefully accepted.

Mobile robots are playing an ever larger role as we move into the age of self-driving cars, simply in helping people get used

to the coming scenario. We are in the middle of a process right now. The industry can't simply say, "So, now we begin."

Both society and the economy are much further on than people realize and that's not just us at Daimler, Google or other

famous companies. In Great Britain for example, they are developing small, automatic transport systems – so-called 'pods'.

In Masdar, in the model city in the United Arab Emirates, these pods are already being driven in underground parking lots.

On the other hand, Daimler Trucks has presented the first automatic HGV that is allowed on the streets of Nevada. That's

also a different dimension. In addition to that, there are production robots in factories and people now work with them

‘hand in hand’, so to speak. Robotics is being applied across a wide range of sectors. The car is just the most noticeable of

these. From a cultural perspective, it is a well-known object, and people are used to it. And now it is suddenly changing its

character.

Where can this be seen in vehicles that are already available?

Take a look at the current Mercedes-Benz S-class: The adaptive cruise control DISTRONIC PLUS with steering assistance helps

the driver to keep the desired distance to the vehicle in front, even with stop-and-go driving, and also automatically helps

them stay in the correct lane. You can really see the stress levels falling when people use this.