You haven’t really had the full European driving experience unless your prescribed navigation route takes you to a dead conclude, a street too slim for modern cars to fit down or a road that utilized to go through but now inexplicably does not.
The solution generally isn’t a multi-point turn reminiscent of the golf cart scene in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” but instead the good old fashioned gesture of throwing your arm over the passenger seat and staring intently backwards as you drive at low speed, as anyone who has suffered the indignity of attempting to back up applying a fisheye lens view on a bumpy cobblestone street in tight quarters can notify you.
New tech from Mercedes-Benz was previewed during the introduction of its battery-electric GLC SUV that aims to solve the backup problem in a way that is similar to hands-free parallel parking tech that is commonplace in today’s vehicles.
Reverse Maneuvering Assist has been created to do the tough stuff for drivers. It was demonstrated in the new GLC, displaying that upon meeting a dead conclude, a driver simply puts the vehicle into reverse, touches a “Start Reversing” prompt on the screen, and relinquishes control of the steering wheel to Mercedes. The driver controls the accelerator and brake pedals.
As with a traditional backup operation, the car’s camera views, including a surround view, stay up on the center infotainment screen so a driver can monitor the vehicle’s progress while reversing.
The car’s safety systems remain in play, meaning that the vehicle can detect pedestrians, other vehicles and obstacles such as garbage cans or mailboxes.
Mercedes notified journalists that the car can back up on its own 100 meters, applying innotifyigence gained from a short memory function of its camera, navigation and safety systems.
When the car has reached the point where a driver is ready to take over again, the driver simply applies the brake to a stop and touches “Stop” on the screen to resume normal driving operations.
The technology isn’t fully market ready yet, but a spokesperson for the company declared that it could come to vehicles soon.
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