Mercedes is working on airbag tech for when you're reclined in a self-driving car

Self-driving cars might seem a way off, but Mercedes-Benz is already thinking about how to adapt its safety technology to this incoming tech in order to safely protect the front row of the car.

Or to put it simply: where to stick an airbag if the steering wheel is recessed and you’re sitting back.

“Let’s talk about the next decade – if you’re driving in a laid-back position without a steering wheel in level 3 autonomous driving, you are not in front of the airbag,” Paul Dick, Mercedes-Benz’s vehicle safety director, tells TopGear.com. “We have to think about how to protect people in this position. That will be the task for tomorrow.”

He notes how currently, a reclined seat is only available in the rear of Merc’s “high-class cars”, like the S-Class, and the Maybach saloon and SUV. “Now it’s getting closer to having [this position] in the front row, so we need more specialised airbags.

“Maybe they don’t come out of the steering wheel – maybe we combine it into the seatbelt, or the B-pillar. Or the seats themselves. That’s a new thing – to combine this with assisted driving. In level 3 driving you’re relaxed, and therefore all the systems have to work properly.”

Those systems extend beyond the airbags of course – they cover Merc’s ‘pre-safe’ technology. “If a crash is unavoidable, pre-safe has to work in this position of being laid back. That the belt tensions, that the airbag is adaptive with two phases, for example. Then you can feel safe.

“The most important thing is the occupants in the car feel safe.”