Benz's 'clever' cruise control for S-Class?

New fuel-saving feature for trucks only — for the present
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Mercedes-Benz in Germany has developed a cruise control system more capable than all but the most focused of drivers. And the Predictive Power Control system, as it's known, is bound for a passenger car with a three-pointed star on the grille.

Introduced in the Actros truck range, the new system relies on geodetic data and the global positioning system (GPS) to determine whether the prime mover should be picking up speed ahead of a climb or changing down a gear on a descent. Benz-owned Freightliner first brought a GPS-based speed regulator to market in 2009, but that system — 'Predictive Cruise Control' — did not regulate the transmission.

According to Benz, the new system can improve fuel economy on a run by as much as three per cent and, in fact, is superior to all drivers barring "an extremely motivated truck driver with an exceptional level of concentration".

It's a system with potential in passenger cars too, according to the Senior Manager for Corporate Communications at Mercedes-Benz Australia, David McCarthy. But there's no word on whether the system — as a complete package or otherwise — will make it into the next generation S-Class. The new Benz flagship is at least 12 months away from a local launch, McCarthy says, but technical details will begin to trickle out "towards the end of the year," ahead of the car's global launch.

While Predictive Power Control could be one of the new features introduced with the next passenger car flagship, McCarthy says that it's not simply a question of taking a black box out of a truck and fitting it to a passenger car. To illustrate, he provided the example of ESP — the electronic stability control program developed jointly by Bosch and Mercedes-Benz for the W126 S-Class in the early 1980s.

"ESP in a Sprinter or a Vito van is adaptive, but adaptive in the sense that it adapts to the load, where the load's positioned, et cetera. That is in one way different to a passenger car, because a passenger car — realistically — you can have five passengers and luggage.

"In a van you might have a tonne that's just above the axle line or you might have a tonne that's almost at the roof."

Just as the ESP in the Sprinter is actually more sophisticated in one way than its counterpart in passenger vehicles — where load positioning is less critical to active safety — Predictive Power Control would very likely need to be calibrated specifically for different parameters in passenger cars, including higher potential top speeds (on German autobahns in particular), the varying power delivery characteristics of petrol engines and epicylic transmissions or even integration with hybrid-drive and DiesOtto drivetrain systems.

McCarthy hints that the intelligent cruise control system may not be introduced to passenger cars with the next S-Class, despite that model being Benz's traditional "technology leader".

"One thing that has changed over the last few years... is that previously you saw a lot of technology introduced at the very top level, and it would then trickle down..." he explained. "That's changed quite a bit; you've seen in E-Class and B-Class and C-Class some technologies introduced that actually weren't in S-Class [first]. So it's not always the case, but we have no intention of surrendering the reality that the S-Class has been a benchmark in technology and innovation for a very long time."

Without specifically admitting that Benz has a history of introducing new technology in its passenger cars at the very outset of a new model cycle, rather than as running changes, McCarthy did say that the new S-Class would launch "safety innovations and equipment". Some of those features, he says, were previously showcased on the 2009 ESF concept car, which was based on the current (W221) model. One of those features is a centrally-suspended airbag that prevents front-seat occupants belting heads together in a prang — and that seems a likely candidate for inclusion in the production S-Class when it hits the streets next year.

One point that McCarthy stressed was the propensity for Mercedes-Benz to recycle technology across all its platforms, whether a "two-seater smart" or a "140-tonne roadtrain".

"Rest assured that any innovation, any enhancement gets used across all the vehicle platforms, as long as it's relevant to that platform," he said.

So Predictive Power Control is not a matter of 'if' as much as 'when'. And while it could wait for the next E-Class, our money's on the S-Class introducing it, or something much like it, next year.

Computer-generated image courtesy of Carparazzi

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