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We left Australia with many insights that we are going to work on.

Right now we're in Africa – unfortunately without Jochen –

but I've heard Africa is supposed to be one of the most beautiful countries on this planet.

So I'm extremely excited

and our engineers are as well, because there's lots to work on.

We're going to hit the road right now!

What is very important to me is pedestrians,

because we experience pedestrians in all of this three situations –

we have them on highways, rural roads and city.

Potential surprises for a self-driving car

would be big potholes but also falling rocks from the cliffs

that are sitting on the street that you need to swerve around.

And very narrow streets we found here in Cape Town as well.

So very complicated situations for a self-driving car.

Just like in Australia as soon as you leave the city

and drive through more rural areas there's many signs

that drew our attention to the wild life that is all around us.

We've seen signs with penguins, monkeys,

springboks, and special toads –

so we obviously want to pay attention to those,

not to run them over

and not to endanger other road users and ourselves.

So for our future self-driving cars it's important to learn

how recognize them correctly and to have a good strategy on how to react.

Map data is the key factor of a good function.

And of course we tested that here on very scenic

and very curvey roads and the system performed very well

and we have a very good version of our map data software –

and this is of course very good also for the system.

What we have not seen neither in Germany

nor Shanghai or in Sydney

is sand actually on the street

where you cannot see the lane markings anymore.

We're learning to expect the unexpected –

and anywhere else in the world there could be snow,

there could be leaves, there could be anything else

obstructing the lanes and the visibility of the road surface.

That's what we want to get better at

and to learn how to deal with.

Our multibeam system can detect pedestrians

and shine a spotlight onto them –

assisting the driver to see them correctly and pay attention to them.

But also to inform the pedestrian on the road

that the car has actually recognized the pedestrian on the side of the road.

Africa was beautiful. Many things to see here.

Especially for the project what we've encountered here.

We're gonna analyze those things in more detail.

Jochen will be meeting us in the United States –

our final stop for the Intelligent World Drive.

I've been there many times but not with this one.

Really looking forward to that!

For more infomation >> Mercedes-Benz: Intelligent World Drive – Part 4: South Africa - Duration: 4:07.

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Mercedes-Benz Vito 111 CDI 320 LANG DC LUXE AIRCO ECC CRUISE DUBBELE CABINE PARROT TREKHAAK!! - Duration: 0:56.

For more infomation >> Mercedes-Benz Vito 111 CDI 320 LANG DC LUXE AIRCO ECC CRUISE DUBBELE CABINE PARROT TREKHAAK!! - Duration: 0:56.

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Mercedes-Benz GLA-Klasse GLA 180 d Automaat AMG Line - Duration: 0:54.

For more infomation >> Mercedes-Benz GLA-Klasse GLA 180 d Automaat AMG Line - Duration: 0:54.

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Mercedes-Benz B-Klasse 250 E Automaat - Duration: 0:56.

For more infomation >> Mercedes-Benz B-Klasse 250 E Automaat - Duration: 0:56.

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2017 Mercedes-Benz E300: Mercedes Made An E-Class Better Than An S-Class part 1 - Duration: 5:24.

2017 Mercedes-Benz E300: Mercedes Made An E-Class Better Than An S-Class part 1

The top-rung Mercedes-Benz S-Class has long been the testbed for the latest technology from the automaker; lately, semi-autonomous tech and all.

Now Mercedes is trying something different—putting an array of new tech on the new midsize 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which will trickle up instead of down.

But when it's not trying to drive itself, the E300 is so aggressive you'll have to double check that there are only four cylinders under the hood.

What do I mean new technology? The car makes crashes easier on your ears in the event of a crash.

It warns other new E-Classes of wrecks and hazards on the road.

The dashboard is mostly. screen.

The steering wheel has tablet-like control.

And that's just to start.

The only version of the car I had available was the all-wheel-drive E300, which puts down 241 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque from its 20-liter turbo four-cylinder engine.

The car starts at $51,250, which is just under $1,000 cheaper than the old E-Class.

Optional equipment—and boy, there is a lot of it—hasn't been priced yet, so that marker can climb pretty quickly if you want all of the gadgets.

Even in an era of endless SUV proliferation, the E-Class is still one of Mercedes' top-selling vehicles.

That's doubly true here, since the new generation of the E-Class introduces a set of technologies that'll eventually be put on the rest of the manufacturer's lineup.

Some of those technologies were great, others—mainly, the semi-autonomous "assistance" ones—weren't as consistent as expected.

But hey, there's always room for improvement.

Let's talk about it. The Look.

On the outside, well, it looks like a Mercedes sedan.

At one point on the drive, there was a C-Class driving behind our vehicle and we couldn't tell whether it was a member of out E-Class fleet.

That's not to say the car is bad looking from the outside—it's just another Mercedes sedan.

It's classy, it's clean and it has nice lines, but it's not shouty.

The design of the first-generation Mercedes CLS inspires the line stretching toward the back of the vehicle, and the car's taillights will vary in intensity throughout the day to avoid blinding the person behind you when you hit the brakes.

While the car doesn't look necessarily huge, it is a big vehicle.

The car itself is two inches longer than the outgoing E-Class, and the wheelbase is three inches wider.

Its size is kind of shocking when you first get behind the wheel, but the Mercedes folks told us that the car weighs a full 154 pounds less than the last model.

We're fully in the era where cars can get bigger, but also have to get lighter.

The sport models, like this one, will have a flat Mercedes logo on the hood and the grille, while the luxury-line versions will forgo the grille emblem and have the classic standing star on the hood.

As for colors, the "Selenite Grey Magno" at the top of this post is perhaps the best looking.

It's a matte finish and it looks just plain sleek.

The Interior.

Though the outside isn't necessarily a standout in the Mercedes lineup, the interior of the new E-Class is where the magic really happens.