From Mercedes, a fully connected van concept

Though the Vision Van is just a concept for now, Mercedes has invested an undisclosed amount into Matternet, indicating that the companies could collaborate again for future Mercedes commercial vehicles. Mercedes didn’t outline a time frame for when the drones or technologies like a robotic arm for sorting parcels inside the van might become commercially available.

“We had a record-breaking 2015 with 321,000 vehicles sold and revenue raised by 50 per cent, so you may ask why we want to change”.

The new vans being developed will have a range of up to 270 kilometers (168 miles) on a charge, it said, and include an automated cargo space integrated with delivery drones.

After giving a long fight against the diesel ban in the Delhi-NCR, German luxury carmaker Mercedes- Benz on Wednesday brought a petrol version of its premium SUV GLS400 4MATIC priced at Rs 82.90 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

Many industries are researching potential uses of drones beyond dropping the latest Internet shopping on people’s doorsteps, such as railroad-track inspections, spotting criminals on the run or organ delivery for hospitals, though a regulatory structure for the aircraft is still in its infancy. In the future, the intelligent networking of technologies can also make the transportation of goods more efficient and considerably improve transport on the last mile. Daimler is planning to launch more electric vehicles in order to push the fight back to Tesla, Volkswagen AG and Audi AG. Called adVANce – geddit? – this initiative involves Daimler working with partners such as software engineers at Silicon Valley startups, to ride sharing services and logistics specialists to create what Volker Mornhinweg, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, sees as a completely new business model for his division. But the plan, revealed today, goes much further than that. Mornhinweg’s goal is developing digital solutions for the entire transport value chain including the digital business environment of Mercedes-Benz Vans’ customers. In an area dense with delivery addresses, the autonomous drones could be set on their way to ferry small packages, while the van’s driver delivers heavier parcels to the rest of the neighborhood.

Mercedes-Benz Vans is off to a strong start this year, with sales volume by by 21 percent to 176,200 units in the first six months.

Judging by what the automaker has cooking at R&D facilities in Germany and California, he’s probably right.

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With the intent of, possibly, wooing the FedExes, DHLs and Amazons of this world, the Vision Van is created to reduce the time, and effort, required to deliver parcels from a distribution centre to their intended recipients. How it’s going to get there, though, remains to be seen.