Mercedes-Benz showed a prototype of an electric van: it cleans the air around it

The automobile company Mercedes-Benz has officially presented a prototype of its commercial vehicle for the near future – we are talking about an electric van, which is built on the basis of the popular Sprinter. This car, still shown in concept format, was named Sustaineer (SustainABILITY PIONeer) and immediately attracted the public’s attention with several unique elements. Firstly, the van of the future received a solar battery with a total area of ​​4.8 square meters on the roof of an impressive size. Unfortunately, the manufacturer does not say how much electricity this panel supplies in good weather.

Secondly, perhaps the main feature of the Sustaineer van is the filtration function – an electric vehicle will literally purify the air around it from various small debris. The fact is that sufficiently effective MANN + HUMMEL air filters are installed in the lower part of the vehicle, which during the ride will draw in various debris from the road surface, including small particles of car tires, dust, brake pad elements and more. This filter will need to be changed once a year, but so far there is no information on how Mercedes-Benz will motivate the owners of such vans to do this on a voluntary basis.

Thirdly, the manufacturer notes that the van is able to travel up to 1000 kilometers on a single charge, which is a very impressive figure for a freight transport. However, most likely, we are talking about an empty van without additional load – how much this distance will be reduced when the cargo compartment is completely filled, too, is not reported. But the van received a lot of smart features that allow you to speed up the process of loading and unloading, plus there is a biometric driver’s face recognition technology.

And Mercedes-Benz has equipped the Sustaineer with a rather interesting technology that would be nice to implement on other production cars – the van is equipped with special cameras and sensors that assess the state of the road in real time. And in case the vehicle notices any danger on the road, be it a crack, a pothole or something else, this information will be automatically transferred to other vans. And if the air filter does not seem like a very useful function, then this technology is really necessary.

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