Mercedes Benz partners with Google to add maps, YouTube in cars

Luxury car maker Mercedes Benz on Thursday announced a long-term strategic partnership with Google to build its navigation experience.

The partnership enables Mercedes-Benz to create a driving experience that pairs information from Google Maps with the luxury car, the company said in a statement.

With this integration, Mercedes-Benz will give its customers access to initial new features like Place Details, provided by Google. The companies have also agreed to explore further collaboration using Google Cloud's artificial intelligence (AI), data and open infrastructure solutions.

This partnership will also bring the YouTube app into the Mercedes-Benz infotainment system.

In addition, Mercedes-Benz will use Google Maps data to enable assisted driving features such as automatic speed adjustments before intersections, roundabouts, or curves.

"With our strategic partnership, we are excited to create unique services and to elevate the level of convenience for our customers. It will be deeply integrated within our signature Mercedes-Benz user interface and fully connected to relevant vehicle functions like the state-of-charge," said Ola Källenius, Chief Executive Officer, Mercedes-Benz.

Speaking about the same collaboration, Sundar Pichai, Chief Executive Officer, of Google, and Alphabet said, "Our partnership with Mercedes-Benz brings advanced technologies from Google Maps Platform, Cloud, and YouTube to help create new experiences for drivers. In addition to enabling Mercedes-Benz to design a customized navigation interface, we'll provide our AI and data capabilities to accelerate their sustainability efforts, advance autonomous driving, and create an enhanced customer experience."

This partnership gives Mercedes an added edge to go head-to-head with Elon Musk's Tesla and other Chinese players like BYD.

Meanwhile, other carmakers like General Motors, Renault, Nissan,  and Ford have also embedded an entire package of Google services into their vehicles, offering features like Google Maps, Google Assistant, and more.

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