A mishap during a Mercedes demonstration to the press left many onlookers wondering if the German automakers had hired the same team behind some of Bill Gates’ botched Windows presentations of the 1990s. The new Mercedes S-Class has a sophisticated radar-based braking system that can automatically prevent accidents. But with cameras rolling and photographers standing by, something went wrong with the car’s radar system, resulting in a 3-car fender-bender involving over $200,000 worth of cars. In the demo, Mercedes drives 3 cars behind each other. The first car hits the brakes, and the two following S-Class sedans are supposed to brake down automatically, to avoid a crash. What actually happened was slightly different: the first car braked, and the two others continued right into the back of each other. Mercedes blames the steel hall in which the test was conducted for interfering with the radar system. The system “works perfectly in all other circumstances”, according to Mercedes. (Mercedes was recently honored by Popular Science for the braking technology.)
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