Mercedes-Benz Puts Haas Alert on the Map

For more than a decade Mercedes-Benz has been chasing the dream of vehicle-to-vehicle communications. At long last, the company has launched the Haas Alert Safety Cloud vehicle-to-cloud-to-vehicle application as part of its beta program in the U.S.

Prior to this momentous move by Mercedes-Benz, the company was one of two companies that enabled wireless communications between cars within its own brand. The other car company that enabled such communication was BMW. For both companies, the idea was that Mercedes-Benz and BMW drivers would alert other Mercedes-Benz and BMW drivers to road hazards and even, under the right circumstances, to the immediate proximity of a similarly equipped same-brand vehicle in the event of an imminent crash between the two.

Yes, the proposition was and is as absurd as it sounds. But it reflected ongoing frustration with efforts within the automotive industry to bring Wi-Fi-based so-called V2X (i.e. vehicle-to-everything) connectivity to all cars via some kind of mandate in the U.S. and E.U. With the onset of LTE device-to-device communications cars could not only communicate indirectly via the cloud but also directly in crash-imminent circumstances if enabled and appropriately equipped.

The move paralleled efforts 10 years ago by both TomTom and HERE, the navigation mapping companies, to create a data sharing platform for road hazards - again, for vehicle-to-cloud-to-vehicle communications. The idea was a clever one, but car companies refused to share their data across brands via either TomTom or HERE, which were competing for the opportunity.

Adding to the silliness is the fact that Mercedes-Benz and BMW remain joint venture partners of HERE and were so at the time the data sharing platform was being developed. Obviously these partners went their separate ways on data sharing - though they later did agree to share traffic data.

It's possible that privacy concerns have been a barrier to sharing road hazard data such as vehicle crashes or breakdowns. Rival General Motors' OnStar telematics system is famous for a lot of things but not for sharing the crash data of GM vehicle owners with the owners of other GM vehicles that may be sharing the road.

Volvo recently joined this small group of within-brand data sharers, announcing the availability in some Scandinavian markets of the ability of crashed or broken down Volvos to alert other Volvos in the vicinity to their presence. Once again, a clever solution, but one that would have more meaning were it to be universally enabled across all brands.

Mercedes-Benz has upped the Car-to-X messaging ante by adding several categories of data sharing between appropriately equipped Mercedes-Benz vehicles, at least in Europe. Those categories include the existence of cross winds, mobile construction sites, broken down vehicles, speed bumps, reduced visibility, crashes, heavy rain, and hazard lights. Most remarkable is the inability to identify and share location data regarding the presence of black ice, which was always the favorite road-ahead warning application referenced for V2X applications.

Now, in the U.S., Mercedes-Benz is trialing Haas Alert's Safety Cloud-based Emergency Vehicle Alert system. The EVA alerts drivers to the proximity of responding emergency vehicles. The system is able to communicate this information to the car from the cloud wherever the local emergency vehicles are equipped with Haas Alert's beacon technology. (Haas Alert works with vehicle, emergency lightbar, and connectivity module manufacturers and local authorities to see that their devices are built in to these vehicles.)

Mercedes-Benz is not the first to market implementing the Haas Alert Safety Cloud EVA. Stellantis nabbed the first-to-market honors more than a year ago. But Mercedes-Benz has upped the ante by integrating the alert into the in-dash navigation screen and the head-up display (where available). When in the presence of a responding emergency vehicle (fire truck, police car, or ambulance) the system triggers visual and acoustic alerts to the driver. The system monitors a 3-9 kilometer perimeter around each car fitted with the system.

Haas Alert actually captures and shares a portfolio of driving alerts that goes well beyond emergency vehicles and even incorporates the beacons from so-called connected "arrow signs" around construction zones, amber and other color-coded alerts and more all via the Safety Cloud.

Mercedes-Benz owners can enroll in the beta program on their own. The company says that to find out if a vehicle is eligible, open the Mercedes Me app, click on the menu button to see a list of available betas. Then toggle the Emergency Vehicle Alerts button to participate.

The safety implications of the Haas Alert application are significant. Multiple research studies have demonstrated that consumers that receive in-vehicle alerts, of the sort enabled by Haas Alert, do respond, slow down, and move over - either pulling to the curb or moving to the left to avoid emergency vehicles on the shoulder. In fact, drivers may not realize that they are legally obligated to either pull over or move over in these circumstances.

While the Haas Alert technology represents a breakthrough in cross-brand communication of vehicle alerts, Mercedes-Benz also stands out for its beta program. The combination of beta programs and over the air software updates and over the air app integrations are transforming the automotive industry and enhancing the value of cars after the sale. This is also fundamentally altering customer relationships, presumably for the better. That is one way that Mercedes-Benz is at least getting car-to-customer communications right.