Sustainable Luxury in 2040 City Mobility

Abstract

This Master Thesis is created in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz AG, Society and Mobility Pioneering department.
The project focuses on ‘sustainable luxury in 2040 city mobility’. With ‘Personal Luxury Sharing’, Mercedes-Benz will be able to be a role model in the future city center. Where cities change into ‘livable cities’, seeing a declining role for the car as king of the roads, Personal Luxury Sharing brings Mercedes-Benz in the city center as future role model.
Personal luxury Sharing is a service where personally owned Mercedes-Benz’s are part of the MaaS-system by sharing a personally owned vehicle. As cities will have more strict regulations on vehicles, such as bans for polluting cars or single-occupancy vehicles, using Personal Luxury Sharing enables the car owner to enter restricted city areas, by combining the best of both worlds; the advantage of a personally owned vehicle and a shared vehicle.
Personal Luxury sharing is as a personal mobility assistant. Connected to your agenda, it creates the best route to your preferences, taking into account your mood, willingness to share, openness and possible travel options. It introduces you to other Mercedes-Benz drivers to extend your network.

Explorative research and design are done to get an understanding of the three pillars ‘luxury’, ‘sustainability’ and ‘mobility’ in a future city environment. All in order to create a ‘2040 city worldview’ and vision for the future concept. As Mercedes-Benz is strongly represented in the ‘hardware’ luxury, with their vehicles, Personal Luxury Sharing focuses on luxury in freedom, feeling privileged with a trustful and demand less concept within the familiar Mercedes-Benz environment. the user perceives benefits on multiple levels. This enables the user to have a behavioral change to both experience luxury as well as being sustainable. Luxus mit gutem Gewissen. Inspiration was taken from hotel-like luxury, having it always with you, without being demanding.

The ideation led to a full concept, with an interior concept and exterior design for a suitable vehicle, together with the personal luxury sharing service, connected to your personal device agenda. To add a ‘status object’, an interactive token was added. After evaluation and validation, the concept was brought back to the Personal Luxury Service, connected to your mobile agenda and ring to interact with, having a useful status object that is always with you

Besides city access and the possibility of extending your network, The personal luxury service will provide the best of both worlds, owning and sharing.

A personal car is more than something to go from A to B with, as it is one of the most expensive products owned, after a house, for example, most people do have an emotional bond with their car. It is a sign of freedom, being able to bring you wherever you want, or doing with it whatever you want. With buying one, you are able to choose the one (Mercedes-Benz) that suits you most, with your preferred options, design, or layout. As a disadvantage, it can be a ‘burden’ when looking for a parking lot and takes a lot of space when it is not used, or only used by one person.

A shared car brings advantages as the freedom of parking it wherever you want for free, having multiple ones available, and access to more city areas. On the other hand, there are also some disadvantages. As people don’t see it as ‘theirs’ you never know how the previous owner leaves it for you. As you share it with a lot of others, you never know what happened before. This also means that personal items cannot be stored or left in the car. If you have special needs, or a baby in a fixed seat, this option becomes even less interesting.

Combining both, and thus having the luxury of a personal car with your personal belongings, that you can share with others brings the best of both. Having the access and privileges the same as a shared vehicle, joining one when your personal car is not available or to extend your network with other Mercedes-Benz owners. All this in your own hands, available when you want, not used when you don’t want to. Together this makes Personal Luxury Sharing the best option for city mobility, Luxus mit gutem Gewissen.