One of the more interesting announcements at the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show was that Nvidia and Mercedes are working on AI in the Mercedes-Benz automobiles.  

While Mercedes is researching self-driving cars, in the meantime they offer AI enhancements to the overall automobile use experience. Mercedes announced that it will offer a Virtual Assistant which is supposed to offer a mix of proactive and empathetic interactions. It is supposed to model four emotions and adapt them to the needs, preferences and moods of the humans. While personally I don’t want my car chatting me up, it might come in handy when kids are riding in the back – let the AI handle “Are we there yet?” questions.

Mercedes will, supposedly, train large language model (artificial intelligence) to know the history of Mercedes vehicles, but also the know the manual/handbook for a particular model, as well as status of the vehicle information.  Drivers will be able to have a conversation with the vehicle and get correct answers from the AI.

This is mostly of value to owners. At  auto repair shops, even if we can ask your Mercedes to tell us what codes are stored in the onboard computer, this will not take place of a highly trained technician who has to understand what the codes  imply, and to use other tools to find the root cause of the problem. Once we know what the root cause is, we can repair your Mercedes. So at least for the next decade or so we don’t see much change in how we repair your vehicle – the era of self-diagnosing cars is further away than the age of self-driving cars.

In the meantime, one our our preferred providers, Fremont Auto Center, remains your go-to facility for major Mercedes maintenance and repair tasks in the Bay Area. And when the self-diagnosing cars become a reality, you will still need experienced Mercedes specialists to verify that the computer diagnosed the problem correctly, and to perform the repairs.

So for the foreseeable future you will need a trusted Mercedes specialist to take care of your vehicle. For really difficult Mercedes diagnostics and repairs, we recommend Fremont Auto Center – the owner has not only decades of Mercedes repair experience, but is also certified to work on Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren - one of only a handful of such technicians in the entire United States.