This is Merc's self-driving concept

The German car industry isn't known for being particularly touchy-feely, and the guys in charge haven't got where they are today by running a side-line in stand-up comedy.

But as Mercedes chairman Dr Dieter Zetsche took to the stage in Las Vegas last night, his co-host was a one-eyed robot, and the message was clear: autonomous cars are coming whether we like it or not, so get used to the idea, kids. There was no big punchline, although some of his gags were surprisingly good.

Zetsche and R2-D2 were in town ahead of this week's gigantic CES tech-fest to reveal Mercedes' latest concept, the F015, dubbed ‘Luxury In Motion', and effectively a vision of 2030's autonomous S-class. Yes, theoretically you'll still be able to drive it yourself, but the subtext is, why on earth would you want to?

"Cars will turn into ‘mobile homes' that enable people to do exactly what they want or need to do," Dr Zetsche told us. "This is the re-definition of automotive luxury. It builds on the concept of a ‘third place' - in addition to the home and office. A place where you will actively want to and enjoy hanging out."

And occasionally drive. Powered by Mercedes' hydrogen fuel cell tech, the F015's electrical drive system produces 272bhp overall, and its 0-62mph time of 6.7 seconds, 124mph top speed and 682 mile range all sound marvellous. But the driving experience as we know it here definitely plays second fiddle to the ‘sitting-in-the-car-and-twiddling-with-the-gadgets' experience. Or indeed the ‘I'm-a-bit-hungover-time-for-a-snooze' one. You can forget steering feel or understeer.

The interior is dominated by the variable seating, which allows occupants to rotate their lounge chairs in the event that they might elect to have an actual conversation. The chairs are trimmed in ice-white nappa leather, cradled in polished aluminium mounts, and highlighted with blue LED strips. The cabin is framed by six display screens, which use proximity sensors and gesture control.

The steering wheel glides into position if the F015 is being manually operated, and the main display runs the full width of the interior. There's wood on the floor and open pore walnut on the dash. Natural materials are fundamental to Merc's vision of itself as a player way beyond being merely premium.

But the rest of it unambiguously sets out a future in which quality time and private space are the key co-ordinates of the luxury world. With the global population exploding, and the world's mega-cities rammed, driving entertainment is likely to be a weekend indulgence. The F015 is a spectacular antidote to commuter drudgery.

With no old-fashioned powertrain to package, the F015's mono-box design is logical, but risks the amorphous sterility that often blights far-sighted concepts. Mercedes' head of advanced design, Holger Hutzenlaub, was acutely aware of the booby traps.

"Controlling a simple shape is more difficult. You don't have lots of lines and creases to distract the eye," he tells TG.com. "So we used the car's glass area to structure the shape. Its LED lights are almost like independent islands at the front and rear. Having said that, when the engineering guys kept asking for more shutlines, we kept trying to get rid of them."

The F015 began life as a project in Mercedes' Tokyo studio, where Hutzenlaub was sequestered until recently, and was seeded after an ideas blitz involving Tokyo city planners, leading architects, and Merc's futurologist Alex Mankowski. The finished vehicle is the work of Mercedes design outposts in Lake Como, Stuttgart, and California's Silicon Valley.

"This is a robot on wheels," says Paolo Malabuyo, who heads up Merc's advanced user experience design in Palo Alto. "The big challenges around a car like this are where technology, society and policy converge. The tech is currently more mature than the policy, and we know that there is a big trust issue for consumers when it comes to autonomous cars."

For all its bravery and hi-tech beauty, then, the F015 and its ilk remain mired in some very big questions. Who's responsible if an automated car crashes? Can a vehicle ever really make ethical choices if an accident is unavoidable? Will the legislators ever get their act together to create the necessary legal framework?

Mercedes is certainly ready, even if they're not.