Can the latest "ESF 2019" concept car save Mercedes-Benz, which is plagued by negative news?

Although Mercedes-Benz has been plagued by negative news in the domestic market recently, and was almost criticized to the point of doubting life for replacing the 1.5T engine on the new C-Class and E-Class, and the exterior designs of several new models have received negative reviews comparable to "Game of Thrones 8"; but one thing is for sure, the concept car just brought by Mercedes-Benz called "ESF 2019" still allows people to see the ultimate pursuit of vehicle safety by this century-old car company.

The full name of "ESF" is Experimental Safety Vehicle, which literally means "experimental safety vehicle" in Chinese. Mercedes-Benz has a long history of launching ESF models. For example, ten years ago, it launched the ESF 2009 based on the W221 S-Class, and before that, there were ESF 24, ESF 22, ESF 13, etc.

The newly released ESF 2019 is based on the latest generation of Mercedes-Benz GLE, and it is also the first time that the ESF series is based on an SUV model. The appearance of the whole car basically continues the design of the ordinary version of GLE, but the special identity of ESF 2019 can be easily recognized from the body paint, grille, roof, rearview mirror and other parts.

The body paint of ESF 2019 is mainly composed of black, white and orange, which is exactly the same as the previous ESF 2009; but the difference is that the orange stripes on the front bumper and the side of the body are not simple decorations, but luminous strips that can be lit up and effectively improve recognition. After all, letting other traffic participants see you earlier and farther is a good thing for both parties.

The grille is directly enclosed to become a display screen. Of course, Mercedes-Benz is not as bored as BAIC, which puts an LCD screen on the front of the car just to let the owner show his love. In fact, the function of this display screen is quite powerful. It can display the vehicle's own dynamics and the surrounding traffic environment on the screen to improve the safety of the vehicle and adjacent vehicles.

The center grille display screen on the front face can also directly display warning signs and prompt texts, and in order to facilitate observation by the driver of the vehicle in front, the displayed content is even mirrored, which can be considered quite rigorous.

Even when the ESF 2019 is parked on the side of the road, if the system detects pedestrians passing in front and vehicles passing behind, which is what we commonly call "ghosting", the entire center grille display screen will immediately adjust to maximum brightness and sound an alarm in conjunction with other warning lights on the vehicle to avoid accidents.

We used to refer to Audi as a "lighting factory" because its headlights are cool and always leave a deep impression on people. But it is no exaggeration to say that the headlights equipped on the ESF 2019 can almost beat all current competitors... Thanks to the headlight technology called DIGITAL LIGHT, this headlight can produce a high-definition beam with almost no glare, and the key is that the resolution is even more than 2 million pixels.

Because it has an automatic driving function, in order to avoid the driver's feet having nowhere to put, and to avoid secondary damage to the feet and legs caused by the pedals after a collision accident, the ESF 2019 will retract the pedals and fold the steering wheel down in automatic driving mode.

Due to the special structure of the steering wheel, traditional airbags are naturally not applicable to the ESF 2019. But in fact, without the restriction of the steering wheel, engineers have more space to arrange the airbags. So the front airbags of the ESF 2019 are placed on the dashboard, and the volume is enlarged several times.

In addition, the volume of the side airbags has also been greatly increased, and they are also equipped on both sides of a single seat. After deployment, they will half-wrap the passengers inward, preventing passengers from colliding with the doors while also preventing passengers from colliding with each other, providing a more comprehensive protection effect.

In addition to the common front airbags, ESF 2019 also prepares front airbags for rear passengers. However, unlike conventional fully inflated airbags, only the support structure of the rear airbag is inflated, and the blue part in the middle is a hollow structure; at the same time, in order to avoid secondary damage to the second row passengers, the airbag explosion force is also smaller than the front row.

The top anchor point of the front seat belt has been moved from the B-pillar to the seat. This design was previously more common in sports cars. For the ESF 2019, the greater significance is that no matter how you adjust the seat back angle, the seat belt can well fix the passenger in the seat.

In order to make rear passengers more willing to accept the seat belts, and to quickly increase the body temperature and reduce air conditioning energy consumption, Mercedes-Benz even embedded resistance wires in the seat belts and provided a seat belt heating function. Although I haven't actually experienced it, the feeling I imagined is probably not much different from putting a hot towel on your shoulders after taking a bath in a bathhouse...

What, you have a bad waist and can't turn around to reach the seat belt? Don't worry, the ESF 2019 has a seat belt pusher in the back seat. It's right in front of you, but you still don't dare to reach in and take it?

If you are not familiar with the operation of the vehicle, you may find yourself in an awkward situation where you cannot find the seat belt socket when you get into the car at night. In front of the seat belt interface lighting of the ESF 2019, do you still have the nerve to make excuses for not fastening your seat belt? It is no exaggeration to say that in order to make you fasten your seat belt honestly, Mercedes-Benz is almost sending Dr. Dieter Zetsche to supervise you on site.

As for child safety, in addition to the preventive tensioning of the seat belts and the side impact protection unit provided by the safety seat, parents can also detect the current status of the child through the camera on the seat and display the information on the car screen through wifi. At least it sounds more reliable than the "parent-child mode" of a certain domestic car company that moves the seat back and forth.

In other active safety aspects, ESF 2019 is also quite comprehensive. For example, when turning, if a possible collision with a pedestrian or non-motor vehicle is detected, the driver will receive visual and auditory warnings from the vehicle, and if there is no timely response, the vehicle will choose to brake automatically.

As mentioned above, the rear window of the ESF 2019 has also been transformed into a display screen. When the vehicle detects abnormal road conditions or encounters a situation that requires the vehicle behind to pay attention and give way, a corresponding warning will be displayed on the screen.

This screen can also be connected to the camera in front of the ESF 2019 to project the scene in front of the vehicle onto the rear window display screen, promptly informing the following vehicle of the road conditions ahead and reducing the blind spots of the following vehicles.

If an accident occurs or rescue operations are carried out and the rear vehicles need to give way, ESF 2019 will also release a small Triangle-brand robot that will automatically unfold and drive to the rear... But you have to carefully control how far this little robot runs, otherwise it might be taken away by someone.

summary

Although this is just a safety concept car, many of the safety technologies it carries are not just the wild imagination of engineers, but are quite operational. It is very likely that some of the advanced safety technologies we will see in Mercedes-Benz and even other brands in the future will be developed from this ESF 2019.