SUNNYVALE, California — Mercedes-Benz unveiled a brand new working system that can underpin the luxurious automaker’s next-generation autos.
MB.OS (Mercedes-Benz Working System) combines in-house software program growth with know-how collaborations to enhance 4 key areas: infotainment, automated driving, physique and luxury, and powertrain programs.
“We’re the architects of the system,” Mercedes-Benz Chief Expertise Officer Markus Schaefer mentioned at a media and analyst occasion in Sunnyvale, California, on Wednesday.
Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius described MB.OS as “purpose-built however open to partnership.”
The brand new working system will debut mid-decade on the brand new “electric-first” Mercedes Modular Structure platform, which underpins future compact and midsize electrical vehicles. The subsequent A-Class is anticipated to be the primary automotive outfitted with the system.
Mercedes-Benz North America R&D chief Philipp Skogstad described MB.OS as an “ecosystem” of applied sciences and partnerships designed to future-proof autos by constantly delivering new performance.
“That’s what prospects anticipate nowadays,” Skogstad informed Automotive Information on the sidelines of the occasion.
With its new platform, Mercedes is hoping to construct a moat in opposition to different automakers and encroachment by Massive Tech into the automotive system.
Google’s Android Automotive working system is gaining adoption amongst automakers equivalent to Volvo. In the meantime, Apple aspires to take management of each display screen in a automotive, changing automaker consumer interfaces and management and getting access to extra car and driver information.
Automakers and suppliers have been creating software program for half a century, but it surely has primarily concerned functions on particular digital management items with restricted interplay amongst these management items.
However as automakers transition to next-generation electrical architectures, it’s a necessity to convey a number of parts collectively, mentioned Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst with Guidehouse Insights.
“Coordinating all of these items, managing and validating updates and rushing up the replace course of requires new instruments and totally different ability units from what has historically been used,” Abuelsamid mentioned.
Mercedes’ method to constructing a car working system from the bottom up is about flexibility, mentioned Michael Hafner, a Mercedes vp serving to lead growth of MB.OS.
“We have to personal the whole chain,” Hafner informed Automotive Information. “We’re gaining velocity in deploying new functionalities and we’re gaining content material.”
The brand new working system, Mercedes mentioned, is constructed on in-house-developed {hardware} and software program that can entry providers and content material from tech suppliers.
For example, Mercedes mentioned it will construct a branded navigation system primarily based on in-car information and navigation capabilities from the Google Maps Platform.
The MB.OS navigation system will mix Google’s real-time and predictive site visitors info and automated rerouting know-how with car information equivalent to state of cost and vitality consumption to ship extra exact vary administration for electrical autos.
In the meantime, Mercedes is partnering with NVIDIA and Luminar to develop a Degree 3 automated assisted driving system, at the moment authorized to be used in Nevada.
The Drive Pilot system permits the automotive to take management of driving features below sure situations, releasing the driving force to do different issues, equivalent to answering emails.
Kallenius described the partnership method utilizing a home-building metaphor.
“If you happen to’re an architect, you do not have to put each tile your self or put up each single beam,” he mentioned. “That’s the reason we’ve fastidiously chosen a set of companions.”
MB.OS will increase alternatives for extra over-the-air software program updates to ship new performance to Mercedes prospects and extra income streams for the automaker.
The working system will be capable to entry third-party apps, just like the best way Apple iOS and Google Android cell platforms do.
In 2022, Mercedes-Benz generated greater than €1 billion ($1.06 billion) in revenues with services equivalent to navigation and on-line map updates. It expects whole software-enabled revenues to develop to a “excessive single-digit billion euro” quantity by decade’s finish.