June 7, 2007
In the 1980s, Mercedes-Benz built the world’s first driverless cars, together with the team of Professor Ernst Dickmanns at Bundeswehr Universität München. The culmination of this effort was achieved in 1995, when Dickmanns’ re-engineered autonomous S-Class robot completed a trip from Munich, Bavaria to Copenhagen, Denmark and back. On the autobahn, the robot S-Class achieved speeds exceeding 175 km/h. It suggested and executed overtaking maneuvers. The car’s abilities left a big impression on many observers, and is said to have heavily influenced robot car research and funding decisions world-wide.