Future Transportation

Need for an integrated approach.

- Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard

IAA 2016 in Hannover in September is extremely important because the commercial truck industry seldom faces such great challenges and gets such opportunities as it does today. I want to draw all attention to the key issues and establish positions on what Daimler AG has already achieved and what it needs to do next. What priorities should the truck industry and policy now set?

I’ll begin with the first technology revolution – autonomous driving. I admit, at Daimler Trucks we’re more than a little proud that we’ve blazed the trail for this technology in trucks. We recognized early on that this technology is ideal for our industry. We developed the “Highway Pilot” self-driving feature, and in 2014 with our MercedesBenz Future Truck, introduced the first-ever autonomous truck. In March last, less than two years later, we put a platoon of autonomous trucks on the A52 Autobahn. We are absolutely convinced that this technology has tremendous potential.

So are others. A leading consulting firm recently stated in a study that autonomous driving could reduce the number of truck accidents by about 90 per cent. In Silicon Valley the first start-ups have now discovered autonomous trucks. One tends to believe in principle that Silicon Valley spawns innovative ideas before the rest of the world. But in this case a brand new start-up in San Francisco is behind the 130-year-old Daimler in Germany.

So, we have an advantage and therefore we need to keep up our fast pace, with both the technology and legal framework. We have to adapt our 20th century regulations to the 21st century and we can’t allow ourselves to get bogged down. Before we can answer every question about autonomous driving, we must first allow partially autonomous driving. We have to allow the driver to take his or her hands off the wheel.