Mercedes-Benz Actros Live Event - Review

News

3 Jul

News

On Saturday, July 4 at 11am, Mercedes-Benz undertook a novel customer launch for the new Actros on Australia and New Zealand.

In what was believed to be a first for a commercial vehicle manufacturer in the region, Mercedes-Benz live streamed a drive in the smart new truck as it travels from Melbourne to Daylesford in Victoria.

After a few technical hitches, the broadcast ran as smoothly as the truck itself, showcasing the Actros’ many features in real time

Trucks these days are a technical tour de force and the Actros is no exception. Having experienced Mirror Cam first hand, I can vouch for its brilliancy (is that a word?). When folk try out this truck, I reckon Mirror Cam will sway more than a few potential buyers.

There is no doubt that the innovations coming into trucks are going to save lives – both the truck drivers and the public.

Read about my initial test drive of the Actros below.

In August of last year I was given the opportunity to test drive the new Actros with the innovative Mirror-Cam. To say that I was blown away is an understatement.

This is what I wrote at the time….

Mercedes-Benz Actros - Mirror, Mirror…

There were a couple of disappointments when I drove Mercedes Benz’s latest offering last week. The first was that the new 2653 Actros will not be available to the general public until early next year. The other I’ll come to later on.

If you were at the Brisbane Truck Show, you would have seen this truck taking centre stage on their stand. The big visual difference with the Actros is the mirrors – or lack of them.

The Actos has some 60 changes over the previous model but the four core innovations that we’ll take on board here are the Multimedia Cockpit, the Predictive Powertrain Control, Active Brake Assist-5 ….. and Mirror Cam.

‘Cockpit’ is an apt description for the workplace in the new Benz. Climb up into the cab and you are in a different world to any other truck. Gone are the plethora of switches, buttons and levers, to be replaced by a couple of big and bright flat screens. The 12 inch display sitting in front of the wheel replaces the old conventional instrument cluster and is adaptable in various formats through the steering wheel. This is an S class sedan in a truck.

Want the old analogue style speedo and tacho? Press the button and hey presto, you got it. Want digital readouts? Yep. Always a fan of the classic round dials, I hopped in, drove off with the digital setup and totally forgot to change it over. Some way down the road I thought I’d best have a look at the options but went back to where I’d started, such was the clarity of information I was receiving. It is all a matter of personal preference, the wonderful thing being that you have a choice.

he separate screen is a touchscreen interface for navigation, radio, temp and many other items. There are some really clever things such as the soft switches. Instead of having to retrofit switches for a tipper operator for instance, you can tell the vehicle that it’s got a PTO switch and it’s ready to go. At the moment there are 230 different switches that can be added to the interface. All you need is an input into the bodybuilder interface model. The technology makes the vehicle adaptable to all sorts of uses without third party interference into the computer architecture of the truck, which can often lead to trouble.

There are a number hard switches below the screen, with space for a few more if desired.

The balance between hard switching and soft switching was on the money. With a screen you can do everything and that’s great, but sometimes you quickly need something where a hard switch just makes sense. In the early days of, for example, BMW, these systems were very complicated. Not now. The company has done a lot of work, both in the passenger car and in the commercial vehicle range to find that balance between what’s intuitive and what you need. In the short time I had to play with this screen I found it easy to use. If I can say that, then it really must be a doddle!

The Predictive Powertrain Control incorporates 3-D topographic maps so the big Benz knows the lay of the land about two kilometres in advance. It will adjust speed, power and overrun functions accordingly to give the best possible fuel economy. Engine, gearbox (12 speed automated in this example) and computer work in conjunction beautifully, achieving fuel savings that the most experienced operator of a manual box could never hope to match. It does it all seamlessly as well. The biggest fuel saving is the backing off. The truck knows it is coming to a hill and how steep it is, and lays on power accordingly. Coming to the peak it says, ‘OK, I can roll from here without losing speed.’ What the truck doesn’t know in mapping, it learns over a period of time. The system will evolve to take in things like speed zone detection. The truck is virtually future proofed.

Active Brake Assist with pedestrian detection is also incorporated into the 2653. The system is Gen 5 and uses both radar and camera (as against just radar in older systems). It is much more accurate than the previous generation in terms of what it will pick up and decipher. The radar sees what is there and then interrogates a video to actually identify whether it fits within the parameters.

Under 50kph it will react to organic matter or a pedestrian or anything in front of the vehicle. It only operates under 50 km for now because it is designed to help the situation in a built-up area.

In conjunction with the system is the Adaptive Cruise Control, so out on the highway the truck knows to keep its distance from traffic in front. It will pull up to a complete stop by itself and move on when the traffic in front does. The system uses engine retardation, gearing and whatever else it can, as well as the disk brakes, to pull the vehicle up. Accident avoidance is ‘money in the bank’ to an owner.

Driving manually, a slightly harder jab on the brakes at traffic lights brings Standing Hill Start into operation.

Now, all the aforementioned is wondrous stuff but not as wondrous as the wing mirrors. Because it doesn’t have any! Instead, it has a couple of cameras mounted above the doors and fractionally behind the A-pillars. Complementing them inside the cab, and mounted on the A-pillars are vertical monitors, replicating an ordinary mirror – i.e. a flat view and a convex one. This is Mirror Cam.

Now you may say that this is just a gimmick, over the top and your standard bolt-on jobs are just fine. Well I’m here to tell you they’re not!

Forward, quarter and side vision is like no other truck you’ve ever been in. Period! The vision afforded by this system gives around a 30% wider view than a normal mirror. Drive along the Monash carpark and you can see most the entire length of the slip road while you are beside it – giving plenty of visual warning of impending cat and mouse antics by the occasional fool. The ‘convex’ portion of the screen shows you the whole length of your vehicle. There is simply nowhere for anything beside you to hide.

Even better, there are graduations on the ‘mirrors’ which mark 30, 50 and 100 metres. Better still is an adjustable graduation. Hook up your one, two or three trailers and place a witch’s hat next to the back of the vehicle. Hop in the cab and adjust this graduation to the hat. Now you know exactly where the arse of your truck is. Passing a slower car who is ignorant of the ‘truckies flash’ and there is no problem pulling back in front of it ASAP. Backing into a loading dock? You know exactly how far to go.

Vision on a wet day is as good as in the dry and there is night vision as well, so in low light it looks almost like daytime. At night the system processes the headlights in the camera so you can still see everything else around it. You can actually see the headlights, the car, the driver, et cetera. This is one wonderful system.

Another advantage is mirror panning, so that when you turn left or right the processed image follows the end of the trailer, so that you will always have it in view no matter the angle. The camera stalks can fold up in tight spaces but if it’s that tight you’ve got a problem anyway.

So now you’re thinking that maybe it sounds ok but those cameras are going to be bloody expensive to replace and, let’s face it, mirrors do get damaged. Well here’s the steak knives to go with the deal. Those cameras will cost no more (and possibly a bit less) than replacing the standard 18th century metal and glass job.

But wait! There’s more! Benz estimate that the fuel savings by deleting mirrors will be in the region of one to one and a half percent. If you’re still not convinced then I give up, apart from strongly suggesting you try it for yourself.

So, I drove the Mercedes Benz around the ‘burbs and down the Monash into Gippsland and I loved it. There are other companies out there who are doing much the same thing with telematics and automatics and ride comfort and sound deadening, et-al, but none have Mirror Cam. This is the way of the future.

Now I come to my other great disappointment regarding the Mercedes-Benz Actros. They made me get out of it! As I reluctantly climbed down out of the cab I sang loudly, ‘Oh Lord won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz’. Lord wasn’t listening it would appear.

Then I climbed into my trusty Territory for the drive home. Backing out of my parking bay brought home to me again just how brilliant Mirror Cam is. There is more, much more to this truck. Auto dipping headlights, mood lighting, electronic park brake, on-board weight scales, weights per axle, tire pressure monitoring for truck and trailers…..

Twenty lucky drivers will be undertaking validation testing over the coming months before the trucks release. Gee, I’d like to be one of them.

Remember the Queen Song, I’m in Love with my Car? Well, I’m in Love with this Truck.