Autonomous car deaths "inevitable"

People will still die when autonomous cars are the norm. So concedes Jochen Haab, head of active safety, validation and testing at Mercedes-Benz R&D.

Speaking to motoring.com.au at this week’s local technical briefing on the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class Haab said despite visions of zero fatalities, accidents and road deaths were "inevitable".

"Vision zero is a vision. I am an engineer, zero means zero plus/minus. There is a plus tolerance to it," the straight-talking safety chief told motoring.com.au.

"We have to get closer and closer but you will never be able to deal with that tree falling right in front of you or that kid walking in front of you – that's a road fatality," Haab said.

Haab is in Australia to talk with media and government representatives about the advanced safety functionality and semi-autonomous features of the new E-Class.

Assuming that self-driving cars will be infallible and solve all road trauma concerns is folly according to Haab – both now and in the future.

Authorities in the USA have recently initiated an investigation into the fatality which involved a Tesla Model S. The Benz exec stopped short of commenting on the death but his message was clear – the new technology is not a road safety panacea.

"There will be inevitable accidents, yes.

"Please understand that I will not comment on the incident you mention because I don't have official details. [But] The person that you hit because he stepped into the road half a metre in front of you, you can't do anything about that. That will also happen in 30 year's time… As long we don't have chips in our head. Which I hope we don't," he said.

The new E-Class is priced from around $90K and can steer itself, accelerate, brake and avoid obstacles at slow speeds, such as in a traffic jam, for up to three minutes – theoretically – said Haab.

He points out that the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class is currently a leader in the "partially-automated" vehicle world and can change lanes on the freeway automatically if the driver presses the indicator.

The Tesla Model S, also a pioneer in the automated car field, has similar functionality. But when motoring.com.au queried this, Haab clarified the point.

"They have something like that. What we do is we monitor 80 metres to the back, 250 to the front and 40 to the side. So we monitor what's going on next to us in the lane we want to drive to.

"That system you mentioned, you have to clarify, you have to touch the wheel real shortly and then it changes lane, but the driver is responsible for the lane change. It will not monitor the back.

"I sound like an advertising guy now, but we have intelligent drive – we try to do it the right way. It sounds a little arrogant, sorry for that."

Autonomous car technology makes headlines and all car-makers are under intense internal pressure to develop and demonstrate this technology to the wider public. But, Haab said, Mercedes won't be pushed into fast-tracking something it's not confident will operate safely.

"Sometimes people ask me why don't you do more [with autonomous technology], be braver? I think we do it the right way. We take a smart – you could say conservative – approach but we do one step at a time."

Haab says Mercedes-Benz the philosophy is to tread cautiously and "if it works, we introduce it in the E-Class and the S-Class typically" then it spreads out to other models.

"That's the way you should do it. That makes you confident, the customers confident. It's just like a child learning how to walk. It doesn't start to run right away.

"Big leaps can be unstable. At a reasonable pace everything is fine and that's the way we try to develop these systems."

Haab does not believe the current US investigation will impact significantly on public opinion regarding autonomous cars.

"It raises questions yes, and of course we discuss it internally, we try to get information, but it confirms the [validity of the gradual] way we do it," he told motoing.com.au.