Is a typical Mercedes-Benz Driving Character still necessary with an increasing number of driver assistance systems?

Authors

Dr. Stefan Botev, Dipl.-Ing. Horst Brauner, Prof. Dr. Ludger Dragon,
Daimler AG

Year

2019

Summary

If you read the German automotive press one can get the impression that the journalists know the character of the brand Mercedes-Benz. Expressions like “A Benz like it should be.” or “a Daimler with typical values …” underline the character of the Mercedes-Benz driving behavior. This expectation is also there for our customers. Expressions like “the Mercedes under the …” demonstrate this assessment.
In former times this Driving Character of Mercedes-Benz cars has been worked out mainly by doing subjective evaluations. The car behavior has been improved by modifying real parts. Today Mercedes-Benz uses so called “digital prototypes” to develop the vehicle functions. The digital prototype has been established by Daimler at the beginning of this millennium and is indispensable in the Mercedes-Benz car development. Nowadays the digital prototype can be understood as a forerunner of the “digital transformation” process in the automotive industry. Once you have simulations which can predict the vehicle performance the development time becomes shorter and the development risk decreases.
Even if your simulations are highly validated, that is to say that the simulations can predict the measured values of the real car, there is still the well-known challenge to know which measured or simulated value describe the driving character in a precise and sufficient way.

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