Signs of the apocalypse: the new driverless car from Mercedes

The race for car companies to populate planet earth with autonomous vehicles (them self drivin’ cars for us simple folk) is on, and the latest demo from Mercedes is both awesome and terrifying (watch below). It’s part of the big push to get us all driving kicking back and relaxing on the road across the next decade.

A recent study from BI Intelligence (graph pictured right) forecasts that by 2020 there will be at least 10 million self driving cars on the road globally. This ranges from your regular car, up to the 80,000 pound self driving truck recently announced by Daimler – essentially a machine with a mind of its own and the ability to drive through any school, workplace, playground or crowd of it’s choosing. Yay!

If this has you concerned, fear not. In the UK, KPMG estimates that self-driving cars will lead to 2,500 fewer deaths between 2014 and 2030 (so 156 less per year). However these heart warming facts do not take in to account the moment Artificial Intelligence works out a way to use these machines against us, as was recently discovered by Volvo in a recent test with journalists.

In summary, self-driving cars are no longer something we’d expect to see in a trippy 1960’s interpretation of a dystopian future… that future is now.

Along with Mercedes, BMW, Tesla, Audi and Ford have already released or are releasing self driving features with many other brands working on their own versions of these cars. According to J.D. Power, consumer demand for these vehicles is on the up with members of Generation X and Y are especially interested in buying one of these ‘super rad’ futuristic cars. According to that mob, our purchasing power is only going to grow as will the the push to produce new products.

So with all this in mind, geek out on this completely awesome – but also terrifying glimpse in to the new ride from Merc: