Technology: Mercedes-Benz Sustaineer
Egg-laying woolly milk sow
Mercedes-Benz Sustaineer
© press-inform – the press office
The Mercedes engineers have upgraded an eSprinter to become a technology platform. The Sustaineer offers a colorful mix from fine vacuum cleaners to heated seat belts.
It sounds a bit like an egg-laying woolly milk pig, which Mercedes-Benz is now announcing under the keyword Sustaineer. The Swabians, on the other hand, prefer to speak of “innovation drivers” and “technology carriers”. The fully electric van is intended to “give a concrete outlook on what sustainability may look like in the urban delivery traffic of the future”. To this end, the Stuttgart engineers have packed a whole range of technical ideas into an eSprinter, with which the quality of life in cities is to be improved as well as the climate and resources as well as the safety and comfort of the drivers.
For example, the high-tech Sprinter serves as a kind of eco-vacuum cleaner. Two fine dust particle filters developed together with Mann + Hummel are intended to make a paradox a reality: less fine dust comes out at the back than comes in at the front. A front module filter, for example, cleans the ambient air while driving and charging. In the area of the rear axle, an underbody filter also catches the van’s own fine dust particles and other vehicles and blows the cleaned air out again at the rear. Cast iron brake discs with ceramic coating and tires with optimized rolling resistance ensure that less fine dust is produced than usual. On the roof, extremely flat solar modules provide energy for several thousand additional kilometers per year.
Cameras all around should ensure an enlarged field of vision and a lower risk of accidents. Where the exterior mirrors are usually mounted, the experimental eSprinter has backward-facing “mirror cams”. They reduce air resistance and provide a rear view of screens in the cockpit. A screen also replaces the classic interior mirror – which isn’t much use in a closed van anyway. The camera for this is integrated above the rear loading doors in the “shark fin”, in which otherwise only the radio and navi antenna are installed. Cameras also show the area around the sensor and light barrier-controlled loading doors (called “Speed Delivery Door” in beautiful Marketing Denglish). It goes without saying that the doors are much quieter and no longer wake the whole neighborhood so early in the morning.
We have also thought of the driver, who otherwise hardly ever gets the driver’s compartment warm in winter due to the constant getting in and out of the cab. Both the steering wheel and the seat belts can be heated. If desired, the air conditioning does not warm the entire cockpit, but only the area around the driver. A light module integrated into the sun visor, which imitates daylight, illuminates the driver’s cab and, according to Mercedes, ensures that “the driver remains more attentive and fitter”.
What will make it into the series from this surprise bag remains to be seen.