Mercedes-Benz Unveils New S-Class Built on NVIDIA DRIVE AV, Which Enables an L4-Ready Architecture

Source: NVIDIA AI Blog

Mercedes‑Benz celebrates 140 years of automotive innovation with a new S‑Class built for the AI era. The vehicle pairs Mercedes‑Benz’s safety heritage with NVIDIA’s advanced autonomous‑driving platform to deliver a Level‑4‑ready architecture designed for trust.

🚗 What’s New?

“Mercedes‑Benz has set the standard in the automotive market, building cars defined by exquisite craftsmanship and safety engineering,” – Jensen Huang, Founder & CEO, NVIDIA.

🤝 Partnership with Uber

• Goal: Make the AI‑ready S‑Class available to riders through Uber’s mobility network.
• Background: Extends NVIDIA’s earlier collaboration with Uber on robotaxi services.
• Reference: NVIDIA + Uber partnership

🛡️ Safety‑First Architecture

1. Redundant Computing – Parallel AI and classical stacks ensure continuous operation even if one path fails.
2. Halos System – Monitors sensor health, perception quality, and planning decisions in real time.
3. Long‑Tail Scenario Handling – Trained on massive datasets and validated with high‑fidelity simulation to cope with rare, complex edge cases (e.g., unpredictable pedestrians, debris, aggressive cut‑ins).

📚 NVIDIA DRIVE AV – Technical Highlights

• Training at Scale – Utilises NVIDIA DGX systems for massive model training.
• Simulation & Validation – High‑fidelity environments built with NVIDIA Omniverse NuRec libraries and NVIDIA Cosmos world models.
• AI Foundation – Combines perception, planning, and reasoning technologies into a unified stack.
• Vehicle‑Specific Optimization – Tailored to Mercedes‑Benz platforms and sensor suites for production‑ready reliability.

Learn more:

• NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion architecture
• Level‑4‑ready autonomous driving
• NVIDIA DRIVE AV product page

📽️ Launch Video

Watch the official launch video where Jensen Huang discusses the collaboration.
(Insert video embed or link here if available.)

📌 Key Takeaways

• Legacy meets AI: Mercedes‑Benz’s 140‑year safety pedigree is now powered by NVIDIA’s cutting‑edge autonomous stack.
• Robotaxi ready: The S‑Class is engineered for future mobility services, starting with Uber.
• Safety first: Redundant systems, continuous validation, and extensive simulation keep the vehicle trustworthy on real roads.

Diversity by Design with NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion for Real‑World Mobility

For Level 4 autonomy, safety depends on more than simple redundancy. Vehicles must stay operational despite hardware faults, sensor degradation, and unexpected software behavior.

The new S‑Class will be built on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion, a reference architecture that integrates sensor diversity and hardware redundancy into a unified platform for robotaxi use.

Key Design Principles

• Redundant compute – Maintains operation if a processing element fails.
• Multimodal sensor diversity – Combines cameras, radar, and LiDAR for robust perception.
• Software stack diversity – Pairs AI‑driven decision‑making with a parallel classical safety stack to keep the vehicle within safe boundaries.

Developed in accordance with NVIDIA Halos safety system, NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion eliminates single points of failure and provides the foundation needed for L4‑ready systems.

From AI Foundations to Production‑Ready Autonomy

NVIDIA’s broader AI ecosystem—including the NVIDIA Alpamayo family of open models, simulation tools, and datasets for autonomous vehicles—enables developers and partners to:

• Advance autonomous‑driving research.
• Build their own driving software on a proven foundation.

NVIDIA DRIVE AV

• Refined & Optimized – Tailored for automotive‑grade hardware.
• Engineered for Production – Integrated with strict safety standards (NVIDIA Halos) throughout the AI pipeline.
• Seamlessly Integrated – Adapted to Mercedes‑Benz’s specific sensor suites and vehicle architectures.

This production‑grade approach combines:

• Large‑scale model training.
• High‑fidelity simulation.
• Rigorous safety validation.
• Deep system integration.

Together, they enable NVIDIA DRIVE AV to support both Level 2 point‑to‑point and Level 4‑ready automated‑driving systems in customer vehicles.

Partnership with Mercedes‑Benz

Building on this foundation, Mercedes‑Benz and NVIDIA are delivering an L4‑ready version of the new S‑Class, bringing advanced AI and safety‑focused autonomy to the road.

Core Technology: NVIDIA Alpamayo

At the heart of the solution is NVIDIA Alpamayo, which allows vehicles to:

• Drive smoothly and naturally, emulating human behavior.
• Reason step‑by‑step through complex scenarios.
• Choose the safest possible action—because safety is paramount.

Bringing Safety Engineering Into the Autonomous Driving Era

As AI becomes central to vehicle intelligence, the definition of “the safest car” is evolving. Beyond protecting occupants in a crash, modern vehicles are increasingly designed to help prevent accidents in the first place.

Built on NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion and the full‑stack NVIDIA DRIVE AV software, the next‑generation S‑Class extends Mercedes‑Benz’s long‑standing safety leadership into the AI era. Its L4‑ready architecture combines end‑to‑end AI with parallel classical driving stacks, delivering predictable, reliable operation through a diverse, multi‑layered system design.

This approach reflects a broader shift toward active, intelligent safety—a trend already recognized by independent testing, including the Mercedes‑Benz CLA’s designation as Euro NCAP’s Best Performer of 2025 (source).

Together, Mercedes‑Benz and NVIDIA are demonstrating how legacy automakers and AI pioneers can collaborate to deliver vehicles that are:

• Safer
• Smarter
• Increasingly autonomous

—all without compromising the craftsmanship, comfort, and quality customers expect.