Mercedes, also known as Mercedes-Benz, is a German luxury automobile manufacturer that produces a range of cars, trucks, buses, and coaches. The company was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Mercedes is one of the world’s leading luxury car brands, known for its high-quality engineering, innovative design, and cutting-edge technology.
Mercedes-Benz and Google have entered into a long-term partnership to offer navigation, maps, and YouTube services to drivers of future Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
The deal aims to balance the provision of Google services with the automaker’s control over its intellectual property and marketplace. Mercedes-Benz CEO, Ola Källenius, described the partnership as a licensing agreement that enables the German automaker to be the full architects of the stack.
Mercedes-Benz will access Google’s geospatial offering to power its next-generation operating system called MB.OS, allowing the automaker to build its own branded navigation using new in-car geospatial data and Google’s navigation capabilities.
The partnership will also see Google provide its AI and data capabilities to accelerate Mercedes-Benz’s sustainability efforts, advance autonomous driving, and create an enhanced customer experience. Mercedes-Benz will offer its customers initial new features like Place Details, provided by Google, via an over-the-air software update, with the next-generation Mercedes vehicles expected to go into production towards the end of 2024.
“This is a licensing agreement that is a ‘win-win’ for both parties,” Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Källenius said and the CTO Markus Schäfer added: “I mean, that’s the ultimate goal of MB.OS ultimately, it will create a customer experience so there’s no need to plug in your phone”.
