The moment I've been waiting for my entire life is about to begin.
I'm driving into Germany in a Mercedes-Benz E500 and I'm about to reach the autobahn. For the past four hours, I've been winding my way through tightly regulated Switzerland holding my speed under the limit of 120 kilometers per hour — about 75 mph. The 302 horses under the Benz's hood are practically in a lather, straining to get free. But I can't tell where the autobahn starts.
Suddenly, headlights appear in my side mirror — then an Audi rips past me and disappears doing about 140 mph. This must be it! I deck the accelerator and the V8 answers with immediate thrust, silent and powerful. As my speed climbs, a cool female voice suddenly invades the cockpit asking, "How do you feel?" I feel as if my heart is exploding; all my senses are pegged like the needles on the gauge cluster. A specially installed touchscreen on the dash waits to record my answer by allowing me to press 1 through 6. I wish I could push 8, 9 or even 10 to try to convey my euphoria.
But later, when I reach Munich and the psychologist from Mercedes-Benz reviews my response charts, he says, "On the motorway in Germany you went up with the speed quite heavily and your heart rate didn't go up very much. So you aren't afraid of high speed, you are still kind of relaxed."
The results of this test, in which I wore electrodes on my chest, foot, arm and neck, showed a profile of my inner feelings: I didn't like driving through the tunnels in the Alps (my heart rate accelerated while my speed decreased); after lunch I was rested and relaxed; and later in the day, I was tense in Munich's rush-hour traffic. Additionally, my chart showed heart rate spikes from now-forgotten incidents along the five-hour drive between Lugano, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany.
Studying the Human Machine
What I've gone through today is a condensed version of Mercedes-Benz's "Driver Fitness Safety Program," which studies how the human behind the wheel reacts while driving these world-class cars. In the near future, researchers hope to build cars that are less stressful to drive, and leave drivers less fatigued at the end of a long trip. But they also acknowledge that in an increasingly competitive marketplace, making cars more fun to drive is a natural by-product of their experiments.
My peek behind the scenes began in a hotel conference room in Lugano with a briefing by the Mercedes staff that would prepare me to become a human guinea pig. Dr. Lutz Eckstein, head of Team Active Safety/Assistance Systems at Mercedes, and Dr. Goetz Renner, head of the Acceptance/Behavioural Analysis Department at DaimlerChrysler Research, explained how they have been using groups of 20 to 30 subjects at a time and studying their reactions as they drive for extended periods over various terrain.
The drivers wear sensors which measure their heart rate, muscular tension and skin conductivity as they drive. These various readings are collected and cross-referenced to the speed of the car as it is driven through different conditions. In some cases, researchers use a video camera to record the driver's facial reactions while simultaneously taking a picture of the road ahead of the car. When sharp spikes occur in the data, researchers can return to the video to see what triggered the response.
The team's findings have been impressive: during studies of about 2,500 people, researchers have found that drivers of current Mercedes cars are under less stress. Specifically, muscular tension was 25 percent lower among drivers of today's S-Class sedans than in the previous generation of the S-Class. (Mercedes researchers were reluctant to comment on competing vehicles, but it was clear that they had evaluated the competition and had measured up.)
One feature in particular, Distronic — an adaptive cruise control system that automatically reduces speed as necessary to maintain an established distance behind other vehicles — was particularly stress-reducing. The heart rate of drivers using the Distronic system increased only 1.8 beats per minute compared to 3.2 beats per minute for drivers not using the system. Additionally, the following distance between vehicles increased by 29 percent when using Distronic.
Good Diets for Safe Drivers
The heart rate can be accelerated by sugary snacks, too, we were told by nutritionist Susanne Wendel, a freelance trainer from Munich on hand for the event. She encouraged drivers to eat wisely before setting out on a long trip. She showed us a Coca Cola bottle filled with 18 sugar cubes to dramatically represent how much of the sweetener is used in the soft drink. Instead, she recommends simply drinking water or a German favorite, diluted apple juice, and munching on snack bars containing whole grains.
Wendel then announced that the next morning, before we ourselves were wired for driving responses, we shouldn't drink coffee, since the caffeine would artificially accelerate our heart rate. This triggered a hornet's nest of discussion by coffee-addicted journalists, myself among them. Still, I decided to go cold turkey, just to see what would happen.
Getting Hooked Up
The next morning, after a coffee-free breakfast of granola and yogurt, I was escorted into a darkened hotel suite to get hooked up for my drive. A young Mercedes researcher, speaking excellent English, taped electrodes to my chest, arm, neck and the instep of my left foot. The wires were gathered up and plugged into a small box I wore on my hip.
I was then instructed to wear special goggles and stare at a tiny red dot for 11 minutes. A computer measured the oscillation and dilation of my pupils since these are indicators of my fatigue level. I was found to be well rested and calm.
My E500 was waiting outside the hotel and two technicians got me settled in the car. The box on my hip was connected to a wire that led to a microprocessor in the trunk. A global positioning satellite (GPS) would be following my course, so my heart rate could be cross-referenced to my speed and location. The touchscreen on the dash was ready to record my mood levels. The crowning touch was a neatly packed picnic basket of nutritional snacks such as dried apple chips, bananas, water and something called a "Corny Bar."
I was all strapped in and ready to go. But where was I headed? The technician explained that the navigation system would guide me to my lunch stop in Bad Ragaz and, after an hour's rest, to a hotel in Munich. However, my current location was in the computer database, so he said, "Make a right at the end of the hotel driveway." I pulled away feeling anxious, completely reliant on this car and the ethereal nav system voice. I couldn't help but wonder what my heart rate was doing at this point. Soon, I'd find out.
Beginning the Journey
This was the first time I had driven in Europe so I was nervous. But soon, I found myself lost in the amazing scenery. The road wound through green Alpine valleys and climbed over mountain passes. Neat little villages appeared, each with a church spire rising above red roofs. At one point, a waterfall skipped down the side of a sheer mountain face.
Soon, I began to experiment with Distronic. It is set just like regular cruise control with a control stalk on the left side of the steering column (sometimes you accidentally move it instead of the turn signal). When you come up behind another vehicle, radar sensors behind the grille detect the obstruction and your speed is reduced (brakes are activated if you are going fast enough) to match that of the traffic. If you pull into the left lane, the radar device triggers the engine to return to the previously set speed.
Using Distronic, I was able to drive for long stretches without touching the gas or brake pedals. I had been strictly warned to observe the speed limit in Switzerland so I resigned myself to a legal and sedate pace. On twisty sections of the road, I found that the optional Drive Dynamic seat was changing to provide more lateral support. Later in the day I discovered there was also a massage feature that allowed me to knead my aching back. I was also encouraged to choose from three adaptive suspension settings: Comfort, Sport 1 and Sport 2. I knew the autobahn was coming up soon so I dialed in Sport 2.
Driving on the Autobahn
As I watched hopefully for the autobahn, I realized I was beginning to suffer the deadly effects of what I call CDS or Caffeine Deprivation Syndrome. I had a splitting headache. But my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was at hand. Furthermore, I knew I would be telling this story at home and wanted to make it sound good. So, when I realized the moment had arrived, I decided to push the car well beyond the limits of what I was used to driving.
The E500 was amazingly stable as my speed increased, but I was unnerved by a slow-moving line of trucks in the right lane with cars hidden among them. Our speed differential was huge. Furthermore, I couldn't easily figure out how fast I was going since the speedometer was only in kilometers per hour. Ultimately, I decided that 200 of anything was pretty fast — whether miles per hour or kilometers per hour — and backed off. Later, I was disappointed to learn I had only gone 125 mph — a paltry speed on the most famous legal speedway in the world. (Actually, there are speed limits on certain stretches of the autobahn.)
My speed was drastically reduced as I reached the outskirts of Munich. Here, I was completely reliant on the nav system which expertly guided me to the hotel. I unhooked my transmitter and was escorted to another darkened hotel suite where other driver-journalists were being debriefed. I was given another pupil dilation test, which determined that my eyes were jumping all over the place and my "winks" — as the German researcher called them — were longer and more frequent. I was then told to wait for Dr. Renner, who wanted to review my chart with me.
As I waited, drinking my first cup of coffee that day, and feeling the CDS symptoms disappearing, I wondered if my heart rate charts had revealed something alarming to the doctors. Dr. Renner appeared and spread out two charts in front of me. On one it showed my speed through sections of the route. The other chart showed my heart rate at each point along the road.
Reviewing the Results
"You had the lowest heart rate of the group, a baseline heart rate of 61 (beats per minute) that shows you have quite some fitness and are a sportive person," Dr. Renner told me. I pretended to be absorbed in the charts, a detached researcher, but I was mentally high-fiving myself for all my early morning workout sessions. I was also glad I went cold turkey on the coffee. But wait, there was more good news to feed my ego.
Dr. Renner showed me how the route was divided into sections to reflect different driving conditions. One was labeled "Tunnel section." In his soft-spoken but precise manner, Dr. Renner said, "One thing I always like to look at is how you cope with tunnels. There are people who do not like to drive through tunnels because it is unusual and other people have some sort of fear, they are claustrophobic. When you went into the tunnel, your heart rate went up but not very much."
The times when I used Distronic were obvious on the speed chart with a number of flat sections where my speed was constant. When I put my heart rate chart on top of the speed chart, the times I was using Distronic were times when my heart rate was very low, showing I was relaxed.
From Research to Execution
All this data was fascinating, but I wanted to know what it all added up to. How does it change the way Mercedes are designed and made?
"The development process of a car takes several years," Dr. Renner said. "Sometimes we are asked to answer a question at the very beginning of a project, then we provide input and the car simply evolves and goes through different cycles. At the end it's hard to tell who had the good idea. We simply provide some ideas and a framework that helps the engineer."
But why hasn't this been done before, I wondered? (Actually, Mercedes has had this division for a number of years. But, Dr. Renner said he had never met someone from another manufacturer who did what he does.)
"That's a good question," he replied. "Competitors are catching up [to Mercedes], they also have good engineers and they begin to think of adding new features…."
Suddenly, the picture cleared and I saw that there was a flip side to all this. I realized where all of this was really going or would eventually go.
"I know that you are concerned with safety and reducing stress and all that," I said. "But aren't you really studying what gives a driver pleasure?"
Dr. Renner smiled and nodded. "We want to go more into what we call hedonism: the pleasure of driving. We have dedicated labs to study the pleasure you can get when you touch surfaces or controls [in the car]. We do studies on acoustics for the whole powertrain noise. We also investigate what a door should sound like when you shut it or push a button so you get a feeling of value or quality. We observe people in the showroom and how they explore new cars — how they get into the car and what do they touch to identify the regions that have high priority."
So, in a world where all cars are reliable, where most cars are reasonably safe, it appears that Mercedes is looking for a way to continue to stand above the crowd. The company has found the answer in one time-tested word: pleasure.
I'm driving into Germany in a Mercedes-Benz E500 and I'm about to reach the autobahn. For the past four hours, I've been winding my way through tightly regulated Switzerland holding my speed under the limit of 120 kilometers per hour — about 75 mph. The 302 horses under the Benz's hood are practically in a lather, straining to get free. But I can't tell where the autobahn starts.
Suddenly, headlights appear in my side mirror — then an Audi rips past me and disappears doing about 140 mph. This must be it! I deck the accelerator and the V8 answers with immediate thrust, silent and powerful. As my speed climbs, a cool female voice suddenly invades the cockpit asking, "How do you feel?" I feel as if my heart is exploding; all my senses are pegged like the needles on the gauge cluster. A specially installed touchscreen on the dash waits to record my answer by allowing me to press 1 through 6. I wish I could push 8, 9 or even 10 to try to convey my euphoria.
But later, when I reach Munich and the psychologist from Mercedes-Benz reviews my response charts, he says, "On the motorway in Germany you went up with the speed quite heavily and your heart rate didn't go up very much. So you aren't afraid of high speed, you are still kind of relaxed."
The results of this test, in which I wore electrodes on my chest, foot, arm and neck, showed a profile of my inner feelings: I didn't like driving through the tunnels in the Alps (my heart rate accelerated while my speed decreased); after lunch I was rested and relaxed; and later in the day, I was tense in Munich's rush-hour traffic. Additionally, my chart showed heart rate spikes from now-forgotten incidents along the five-hour drive between Lugano, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany.
Studying the Human Machine
What I've gone through today is a condensed version of Mercedes-Benz's "Driver Fitness Safety Program," which studies how the human behind the wheel reacts while driving these world-class cars. In the near future, researchers hope to build cars that are less stressful to drive, and leave drivers less fatigued at the end of a long trip. But they also acknowledge that in an increasingly competitive marketplace, making cars more fun to drive is a natural by-product of their experiments.
My peek behind the scenes began in a hotel conference room in Lugano with a briefing by the Mercedes staff that would prepare me to become a human guinea pig. Dr. Lutz Eckstein, head of Team Active Safety/Assistance Systems at Mercedes, and Dr. Goetz Renner, head of the Acceptance/Behavioural Analysis Department at DaimlerChrysler Research, explained how they have been using groups of 20 to 30 subjects at a time and studying their reactions as they drive for extended periods over various terrain.
The drivers wear sensors which measure their heart rate, muscular tension and skin conductivity as they drive. These various readings are collected and cross-referenced to the speed of the car as it is driven through different conditions. In some cases, researchers use a video camera to record the driver's facial reactions while simultaneously taking a picture of the road ahead of the car. When sharp spikes occur in the data, researchers can return to the video to see what triggered the response.
The team's findings have been impressive: during studies of about 2,500 people, researchers have found that drivers of current Mercedes cars are under less stress. Specifically, muscular tension was 25 percent lower among drivers of today's S-Class sedans than in the previous generation of the S-Class. (Mercedes researchers were reluctant to comment on competing vehicles, but it was clear that they had evaluated the competition and had measured up.)
One feature in particular, Distronic — an adaptive cruise control system that automatically reduces speed as necessary to maintain an established distance behind other vehicles — was particularly stress-reducing. The heart rate of drivers using the Distronic system increased only 1.8 beats per minute compared to 3.2 beats per minute for drivers not using the system. Additionally, the following distance between vehicles increased by 29 percent when using Distronic.
Good Diets for Safe Drivers
The heart rate can be accelerated by sugary snacks, too, we were told by nutritionist Susanne Wendel, a freelance trainer from Munich on hand for the event. She encouraged drivers to eat wisely before setting out on a long trip. She showed us a Coca Cola bottle filled with 18 sugar cubes to dramatically represent how much of the sweetener is used in the soft drink. Instead, she recommends simply drinking water or a German favorite, diluted apple juice, and munching on snack bars containing whole grains.
Wendel then announced that the next morning, before we ourselves were wired for driving responses, we shouldn't drink coffee, since the caffeine would artificially accelerate our heart rate. This triggered a hornet's nest of discussion by coffee-addicted journalists, myself among them. Still, I decided to go cold turkey, just to see what would happen.
Getting Hooked Up
The next morning, after a coffee-free breakfast of granola and yogurt, I was escorted into a darkened hotel suite to get hooked up for my drive. A young Mercedes researcher, speaking excellent English, taped electrodes to my chest, arm, neck and the instep of my left foot. The wires were gathered up and plugged into a small box I wore on my hip.
I was then instructed to wear special goggles and stare at a tiny red dot for 11 minutes. A computer measured the oscillation and dilation of my pupils since these are indicators of my fatigue level. I was found to be well rested and calm.
My E500 was waiting outside the hotel and two technicians got me settled in the car. The box on my hip was connected to a wire that led to a microprocessor in the trunk. A global positioning satellite (GPS) would be following my course, so my heart rate could be cross-referenced to my speed and location. The touchscreen on the dash was ready to record my mood levels. The crowning touch was a neatly packed picnic basket of nutritional snacks such as dried apple chips, bananas, water and something called a "Corny Bar."
I was all strapped in and ready to go. But where was I headed? The technician explained that the navigation system would guide me to my lunch stop in Bad Ragaz and, after an hour's rest, to a hotel in Munich. However, my current location was in the computer database, so he said, "Make a right at the end of the hotel driveway." I pulled away feeling anxious, completely reliant on this car and the ethereal nav system voice. I couldn't help but wonder what my heart rate was doing at this point. Soon, I'd find out.
Beginning the Journey
This was the first time I had driven in Europe so I was nervous. But soon, I found myself lost in the amazing scenery. The road wound through green Alpine valleys and climbed over mountain passes. Neat little villages appeared, each with a church spire rising above red roofs. At one point, a waterfall skipped down the side of a sheer mountain face.
Soon, I began to experiment with Distronic. It is set just like regular cruise control with a control stalk on the left side of the steering column (sometimes you accidentally move it instead of the turn signal). When you come up behind another vehicle, radar sensors behind the grille detect the obstruction and your speed is reduced (brakes are activated if you are going fast enough) to match that of the traffic. If you pull into the left lane, the radar device triggers the engine to return to the previously set speed.
Using Distronic, I was able to drive for long stretches without touching the gas or brake pedals. I had been strictly warned to observe the speed limit in Switzerland so I resigned myself to a legal and sedate pace. On twisty sections of the road, I found that the optional Drive Dynamic seat was changing to provide more lateral support. Later in the day I discovered there was also a massage feature that allowed me to knead my aching back. I was also encouraged to choose from three adaptive suspension settings: Comfort, Sport 1 and Sport 2. I knew the autobahn was coming up soon so I dialed in Sport 2.
Driving on the Autobahn
As I watched hopefully for the autobahn, I realized I was beginning to suffer the deadly effects of what I call CDS or Caffeine Deprivation Syndrome. I had a splitting headache. But my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was at hand. Furthermore, I knew I would be telling this story at home and wanted to make it sound good. So, when I realized the moment had arrived, I decided to push the car well beyond the limits of what I was used to driving.
The E500 was amazingly stable as my speed increased, but I was unnerved by a slow-moving line of trucks in the right lane with cars hidden among them. Our speed differential was huge. Furthermore, I couldn't easily figure out how fast I was going since the speedometer was only in kilometers per hour. Ultimately, I decided that 200 of anything was pretty fast — whether miles per hour or kilometers per hour — and backed off. Later, I was disappointed to learn I had only gone 125 mph — a paltry speed on the most famous legal speedway in the world. (Actually, there are speed limits on certain stretches of the autobahn.)
My speed was drastically reduced as I reached the outskirts of Munich. Here, I was completely reliant on the nav system which expertly guided me to the hotel. I unhooked my transmitter and was escorted to another darkened hotel suite where other driver-journalists were being debriefed. I was given another pupil dilation test, which determined that my eyes were jumping all over the place and my "winks" — as the German researcher called them — were longer and more frequent. I was then told to wait for Dr. Renner, who wanted to review my chart with me.
As I waited, drinking my first cup of coffee that day, and feeling the CDS symptoms disappearing, I wondered if my heart rate charts had revealed something alarming to the doctors. Dr. Renner appeared and spread out two charts in front of me. On one it showed my speed through sections of the route. The other chart showed my heart rate at each point along the road.
Reviewing the Results
"You had the lowest heart rate of the group, a baseline heart rate of 61 (beats per minute) that shows you have quite some fitness and are a sportive person," Dr. Renner told me. I pretended to be absorbed in the charts, a detached researcher, but I was mentally high-fiving myself for all my early morning workout sessions. I was also glad I went cold turkey on the coffee. But wait, there was more good news to feed my ego.
Dr. Renner showed me how the route was divided into sections to reflect different driving conditions. One was labeled "Tunnel section." In his soft-spoken but precise manner, Dr. Renner said, "One thing I always like to look at is how you cope with tunnels. There are people who do not like to drive through tunnels because it is unusual and other people have some sort of fear, they are claustrophobic. When you went into the tunnel, your heart rate went up but not very much."
The times when I used Distronic were obvious on the speed chart with a number of flat sections where my speed was constant. When I put my heart rate chart on top of the speed chart, the times I was using Distronic were times when my heart rate was very low, showing I was relaxed.
From Research to Execution
All this data was fascinating, but I wanted to know what it all added up to. How does it change the way Mercedes are designed and made?
"The development process of a car takes several years," Dr. Renner said. "Sometimes we are asked to answer a question at the very beginning of a project, then we provide input and the car simply evolves and goes through different cycles. At the end it's hard to tell who had the good idea. We simply provide some ideas and a framework that helps the engineer."
But why hasn't this been done before, I wondered? (Actually, Mercedes has had this division for a number of years. But, Dr. Renner said he had never met someone from another manufacturer who did what he does.)
"That's a good question," he replied. "Competitors are catching up [to Mercedes], they also have good engineers and they begin to think of adding new features…."
Suddenly, the picture cleared and I saw that there was a flip side to all this. I realized where all of this was really going or would eventually go.
"I know that you are concerned with safety and reducing stress and all that," I said. "But aren't you really studying what gives a driver pleasure?"
Dr. Renner smiled and nodded. "We want to go more into what we call hedonism: the pleasure of driving. We have dedicated labs to study the pleasure you can get when you touch surfaces or controls [in the car]. We do studies on acoustics for the whole powertrain noise. We also investigate what a door should sound like when you shut it or push a button so you get a feeling of value or quality. We observe people in the showroom and how they explore new cars — how they get into the car and what do they touch to identify the regions that have high priority."
So, in a world where all cars are reliable, where most cars are reasonably safe, it appears that Mercedes is looking for a way to continue to stand above the crowd. The company has found the answer in one time-tested word: pleasure.
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