MERCEDES-BENZ VISION AVTR CONCEPT AT CES 2020

With VIDEO!

THE CHALLENGES

Increasingly, CES is becoming more and more of a major, must-see car show, but of course CES is much more than that. Unlike at dedicated car shows, there are also thousands of non-automotive products and technologies at CES, dispersed among many different venues spread out around Las Vegas, and exhibited within a frustratingly narrow time frame (only four days for the show plus perhaps a day or two leading up to CES). That makes it impossible to see more than a small fraction of what is exhibited.

Hotels stretch along the Las Vegas Strip

Bring your most comfortable walking shoes to CES because the Las Vegas Convention Center is huge, encompassing several large buildings. Furthermore, a huge new addition to the LVCC is rapidly approaching completion.

Construction is underway on a massive expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center

Getting around the LVCC is like negotiating an enormous, crowded maze – often with major exhibits surrounded by extremely high exhibit walls, impossible to see over. You could easily be standing in one major exhibit and not realize that another that you want to visit is literally almost next door, because you cannot see it. That also makes it difficult to get your bearings, and easy to get lost.

Tall exhibits cut off sight lines, making navigation more difficult

Thankfully the first phase of a tunnel is currently being built by Elon Musk’s Boring Company under the existing buildings of the LVCC and the new addition. Riders will be transported in high-speed, autonomous vehicles. With its three stops, the twin-tunnel LVCC Loop, as it will be called, should drastically reduce the time that it takes to get from one end of the LVCC to the other, and to transportation hubs for transit to other major hotels’ convention centers.

The LVCC is just one of the major CES venues, which brings us to another impediment to seeing as much as possible. To get to another venue requires: waiting in a long line for the free shuttle buses; taking taxis or rideshare services, or driving yourself through eternally gridlocked Las Vegas traffic; walking the deceptively short distances between the sprawling Las Vegas Strip hotels; or taking the Las Vegas Monorail which stops far from The Las Vegas Strip, leaving you little choice but to walk slowly through crowded casinos just to get to the other hotels.

Las Vegas has lots of slow-moving traffic day and night

The challenge, therefore, is that you will not have time to explore all of the venues.

Crowds make it all but impossible to get around CES quickly

MERCEDES-BENZ VISION AVTR CONCEPT VEHICLE

This year, especially with the change in dates for the North American International Auto Show (Detroit) to much later in the year (June 7 – 20, 2020), the world’s automakers are free to concentrate their efforts on – and bring their latest concept cars to – Las Vegas for CES. That is precisely what Mercedes-Benz did with their stunning, futuristic, Vision AVTR concept vehicle.

VIDEO of the Mercedes-Benz Vision AVTR Concept

Intended to show “Sustainable Modern Luxury and the Next Chapter,” the Vision AVTR concept vehicle “connects human, machine and nature in an unprecedented way.” Developed in collaboration with the “AVATAR” team, it “embodies the vision of Mercedes-Benz designers, engineers and trend researchers for mobility in the distant future.”

The all-electric Vision AVTR features four-motor all-wheel-drive with intelligent and fully variable torque distribution, offering the possibility to drive the front and rear pairs of motors in opposite directions, enabling 30-degrees sideways movement.

New high-density, graphene-based organic battery chemistry eliminates rare, toxic and expensive resources for fossil fuels-independent, 100% recyclable energy production, and is rechargeable quickly (15 minutes for approximately 435 miles of range).View gallery image

On the rear are 33 movable, multi-directional, solar plates (“bionic flaps”) to power an array of so-called neuromorphic sensors, chips and other secondary components.

The holistic interior design creates an immersive interior space in which passengers connect with each other, the vehicle and the surrounding area in a unique way. Large areas are covered with a color-changing fabric inspired by the sea. The seats are covered in vegan, sustainable DINAMICA® leather microfiber fabric.

The curved display module replaces a conventional dashboard, displaying real-time 3-D images, magnetic fields, bioenergy and ultraviolet light from outside the vehicle.