Zetsche said the firm would target customers who are not interested in buying their own auto, but still value premium transport options like limousines.

Mercedes-Benz is considering developing its own line of autonomous, on-demand cars.

Mercedes is eyeing its own limo service powered by a fleet of self-driving cars.

This week, Daimler AG (OTC: DDAIF) Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche told Reuters that the luxury carmaker was aiming to take on Uber with a fleet of autonomous vehicles.

Google and Baidu are amongst the first ones to start the development of such cars, and they are clearly ahead of the curve by having legislation permitting them to test autonomous vehicles in at least 4 USA states. He added it would be “extremely practical if the car2go appeared without needing to be prompted, once my appointment in the calendar had come to an end”. In August, BMW, Audi and other German carmakers acquired Nokia’s digital mapping business for $3.2 billion.

Daimler’s video for their self-driving truck. Previous year it bought cab hailing app, MyTaxi which tracks cars progress and pay for the ride using a smartphone.

“I feel you do not want an excessive amount of creativeness to see that by combining these strengths, engaging enterprise fashions are attainable in future”, Zetsche stated.

Consultants at Boston Consulting Group said the falling cost of technology means that taxi services with autonomous vehicles could be up to 35 percent cheaper than conventional cabs.

While self-driving cars are not expected to arrive in showrooms until 2025, Mercedes-Benz has already developed an S-class limousine which drove between Mannheim and Pforzheim in 2013 without driver input.

Daimler’s enlargement plans in automotive sharing are being intently watched by rival BMW, which operates the DriveNow car-sharing service, and by Uber which has stated it can increase into 100 Chinese language cities over the subsequent yr.