Mercedes Benz accelerates future robotaxi ecosystem

Mercedes‑Benz is pioneering a new era of automated driving by accelerating the development of a robotaxi ecosystem. Building on its legacy of innovation, the car manufacturer has chosen the new S‑Class as the ideal vehicle, combining luxury, safety and cutting-edge technology. The top model enables what is known as ‘fail-safe operation’. It integrates redundancies for steering, braking, compute and power supply and, with MB.OS, it presents the perfect launchpad for a driverless shuttle service in America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. 

Creating an open ecosystem requires the best minds in the industry. That is why Mercedes‑Benz pushes SAE-Level 4 development in various projects around the world with leading partners, leveraging the potential of its proprietary operating system MB.OS.

“Mercedes‑Benz is the pioneer in safe autonomous driving. The next step on our roadmap is to enable a robotaxi experience based on the new S‑Class. To accomplish our goal, we have strong industry-leading partners at our side. For us, these partnerships mark the beginning of our entry into the robotaxi market with the S-Class and MB.OS as the ultimate platform.” – Jörg Burzer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG.

Chief Technology Officer, Development & Procurement

Mercedes‑Benz and NVIDIA are collaborating to create a robotaxi ecosystem together with Uber based on the new S‑Class. NVIDIA will implement their NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion architecture and full‑stack NVIDIA DRIVE AV L4 software. It will further be enhanced by NVIDIA Alpamayo open AI models, simulation tools and datasets to bring reasoning‑based, safety‑first autonomy to the platform. Mercedes‑Benz and NVIDIA have a strong collaboration in the field of automated driving development, with NVIDIA’s expertise in AI-based software development being used for Mercedes’ new generation of ADAS-systems.

At the end of 2025, the carmaker announced another L4 project in cooperation with Momenta to develop a Robotaxi experience based on the new S‑Class. The mobility provider Lumo – a subsidiary of the technology company K2 – plans to operate the shuttles initially in Abu Dhabi with the option for more locations later. The first S‑Class robotaxi test vehicles will be deployed on the roads in Abu Dhabi later this year.”