Hey, not all autonomous cars have to be koala-like pods with faces that vaguely resemble clowns who want to eat you! Some of them roll in the utmost luxury and style. And you don't get more stylish and luxury-ish than the Mercedes S Class.
This video takes us for a spin inside the Mercedes S500 Intelligent Drive Concept. The S is not only the top Mercedes, it's also where they pioneer the latest technologies for their own cars as well as the rest of the auto industry. Features on the S Class have a way of showing up on more plebeian cars years down the road.
This is the car that last year drove 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) all by itself in Germany, along the same route used by Bertha Benz in the Benz Patent Motorwagen in 1888.
So the S500 Intelligent Drive Concept may be one of the best previews of realistic autonomous driving we've yet seen. The Google car is a neat experiment, but I feel like this is a little closer to what we'll get on actual cars someday. It's just a concept for now, but it might not be for long.
Besides — wouldn't you rather at least have the option of a steering wheel?