Don’t call the Mercedes F 015 a “car.” In fact, our automotive lexicon doesn’t yet have a word for the sculpted-aluminum land-bound spaceship-limousine. The name F 015, pronounced ef-oh-one-five to avoid confusion with the F15 fighter plane, doesn’t help establish a vehicular classification.
不要把奔驰F 015称为“汽车”，因为我们的汽车词典里还没有一个专有名词能形容它——用铝合金精雕细琢而成，形似太空飞船的豪华座驾。F 015的“0”是为了避免与F15战斗机相混淆，但仅凭这样一个名字并不足以帮它开辟一个新的汽车类别。

Follow these clues. It’s the length of a full-size sedan. It has four large wheels set to its corners. It moves around without a human being behind the steering wheel. And it packs all traditional cargo spaces with an arsenal of computers running at full tilt. The whir of fans to keep processors from overheating is the only sound of its core operations—although it can communicate, when it sees a need, with pedestrians via a Siri-like voice, through laser-beamed messages on the pavement, and in swirls of animated lights displayed on its large open front and rear grilles using a symbolic language of its own invention.
F 015具有一辆全尺寸轿车的长度，配备四个尺寸颇大的车轮，行驶过程中不需要有人操纵方向盘。它的后备箱里塞满了全速运行的电脑。它唯一发出的声音便是防止处理器过热的风扇声——当然，当电脑觉得必要的时候，它也会用像Siri一样的声音，向路上的行人发出警示，并用头灯和尾灯发出一系列奔驰自行发明的动态灯光信号。
I recently had a somewhat bumpy 20-minute ride in the almost-sensuous vehicle-robot. The experience was like being in a first-class single-cabin rail car on virtual tracks. It would not have been out of place at Disneyworld—except that the F 015 is a one-off, the single product of more than four years of Mercedes research. The vehicle is insured at about $12 million.
我最近在这台相当有美感的“未来座驾”里试乘了20分钟，感觉就像坐上了只有一个车厢的列车的头等舱。F 015就算出现在迪士尼世界里也毫无违和感——但这是奔驰花费四年之力研发的杰作，全世界独此一部。奔驰甚至还给它买了一份高达1200万美元的保险。
After my ride, I sat down with the two men most responsible for bringing the F 015 from futuristic hallucination to a tangible full-scale ride-worthy research platform for the future of autonomous mobility. Alexander Mankowsky is a futurist in Daimler’s society and technology group, and Holger Hutzenlaub, a leader of advanced design group in Germany, was based in Mercedes’s Tokyo studio when the project commenced.
试乘之后，我采访了两位最主要的研发功臣，正是他们将这样一个未来主义的科幻概念，变成了看得见摸得着的自动驾驶汽车平台。亚历山大o曼可夫斯基是戴姆勒集团社会与科技部的一名未来学家，霍尔格o赫特森拉伯则是奔驰在德国一个设计部门的负责人，无人驾驶汽车项目开始后，他就开始在奔驰的东京工作室从事研发工作。
The first spark of inspiration occurred in 2007, when Mankowsky—trained as a sociologist—witnessed student engineers competing in a challenge to run a self-driving car through a city environment, at the Urban Challenge held by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a program of the U.S. Department of Defense.
F 015的灵感迸发于2007年。当时美国国防部的国防高级项目研究局举办了一个名叫“城市挑战赛”的项目，曼可夫斯基作为一名社会学家，亲眼见到了参赛的见习工程师们如何接受挑战，让自动驾驶汽车在城市环境中行驶。
The Interview：
以下是采访实录：
Alex Mankowsky: Before the Urban Challenge, I was already working on mobility cultures. People behave differently in different regions. They develop a culture. It’s different in Manhattan than in San Francisco, and so on.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：在“城市挑战赛”以前，我就在研究移动文化了。不同地区的人有不同的行为方式。他们已经形成了一种文化。比如曼哈顿和旧金山的移动文化就不一样。
Bradley Berman: Did you think about nomadic cultures?
《财富》：你是否考虑过游牧文化？
AM: Yes, sure. Nomadic cultures mean you have everything with you. You are a moving village. It’s very funny stuff, which you can see in documentary, avant-garde and mainstream movies, including science fiction.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：是的。游牧文化意味着一切都要随身携带，你就是一座移动的村庄。这是非常有意思的现象，你在纪录片、先锋派电影甚至主流电影中都能看到。
BB: Like the road movie genre?
就像公路片？
AM: Yeah, road movies are important because you always have a dilemma and conflict with the perception of freedom and moving with the car, and the rules and regulations that define a street, and the police. Road movies are always ending with a bad outcome for freedom, like Thelma and Louise and Convoy. In a way, the Star Trek stories are a road movie too, a kind of mobile Socialist community between the stars.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：是的。公路片很重要，因为你总会面临一种两难选择，一方面是自由，另一方面你必须乘车前进。公路片往往有一个不好的结局，这就是你为获得自由而付出的代价，就像《末路狂花》和《车队》一样。从某种角度上说，《星际迷航》系列也是公路片，有点像是一个在星际中移动的社会主义社区。
Holger Hutzenlaub: In 2011, we organized a workshop with the main city planners and architects of Tokyo. We invited Alex, and our own autonomous driving engineers. It was the first time we had a think-tank situation with people from different parts of the company across the globe.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：2011年，我们邀请了东京的大城市规划师和建筑师召开了一次研讨会。我们邀请了亚历山大以及我们自己的自动驾驶工程师。那也是我们首次拥有了一个来自全球各地，供职于公司不同部门的精英组成的智囊团。
AM: The explicit goal was, in three days, to create sketches for different future scenarios and for designers and planners to go home from Tokyo and make future scenarios for their own cities.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：一个明确的目标是，让设计师和规划师利用三天时间，勾勒出他们所在城市未来几十年的发展图景。
HH: It didn’t matter if it was the U.S. studio or the Italian studio. They had to come up with a vision, a two-dimensional picture of his or her main city, and how it would look in 10 or 20 years ahead.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：不管他们是来自美国的工作室还是意大利的工作室，他们都必须用二维图像勾划出他们所在的城市，然后想象这些城市在10年或20年以后会变成什么样子。
AM: These futures used different mobility devices. You can’t say cars. One concept was the “loop city,” with different mobility devices for different routes, in which you can drive different durations. There were moving sidewalks, and even stranger ideas like moving gardens. The F 015 is one example, the one from Tokyo.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：这些城市的未来会用到不同的移动工具——你不能说它一定是汽车。有一个概念提到了“环型城市”，即不同的移动工具行驶在不同的路线上，它们行驶的时间也不一样。未来的城市会有电动履带铺成的自动人行道，甚至可能还有移动的花园。另一个例子就是来自东京的F 015的创意。
BB: Were these ideas hard to sell within the company?
这些理念是否很难说服公司内部的人？
AM: The crucial moment was 2012 during a stressful meeting of some Daimler board members, including Dieter Zetsche (the chairman, and head of Mercedes cars). The mood was not the best.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：曾经有一个重要时刻，那是在2012年，戴姆勒集团的一些董事会成员召开了一次压力很大的会议，参会人包括迪亚特o柴奇（戴姆特总裁兼奔驰公司负责人）。当时的气氛不能算是非常好。
HH: The board wanted a show car for research, but the concept developed by a completely different team was on the table. This other concept was not convincing, so they canceled it.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：董事会希望搞一辆概念车用来研究，但另一个完全不同的团队也将一个概念提到了桌面上。那个概念不够有说服力，所以他们把它毙掉了。
AM: And then I walked in with a single very black slide with the idea of a lasso.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：然后我用一个非常简单的黑色幻灯片提出了“套索”的概念。
HH: Obviously, mom and dad are turning around from the front row to face the kids. We found this after we completed our concept.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：在这张图片中，父母显然是从前排座位上转过身子，面对着后排座位上的孩子。我们是在完成了自己的概念后才发现这一点的。
BB: This picture brings up a criticism, that the F 015 seems like a futuristic vision from the 1950s, sort of a retro-futuristic image, rather than something specifically forward-looking.
这张图片也带来了一些批评，即F 015看起来更像是上世纪50年代人眼中的科幻产物，带有复古未来主义色彩，而不是一个特别向前看的产品。
AM: I like the term retro-futurist. I believe it was a term made popular by the car designer J Mays, who designed the new Beetle. In this case, I don’t accept it because these cars from the ‘50s and ‘60s were very conservative, in terms of the social sense of a family with the father in the front. You see the same thing in Disney animations. You have the father going in this car to the office, but not walking. Instead, he takes just one step out of the car. The housewife and the children are going shopping according to the gender stereotypes of the 1950s. In our case, the vehicle is integrated with the fabric of communication between people. It’s designed more like a robot than a car. The robot-car or mobile robot in our vision can enhance how you interact.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：我喜欢“复古未来主义”这个词。我认为这个词是从新甲壳虫的设计师J Mays那里流行起来的。但在F 015上，我并不接受这种批评，因为上世纪五六十年代的汽车是非常保守的，因为当时社会的主流观念是父亲要坐在车子前排。你在迪士尼动画中也能看到同样的画面。根据五十年代对性别的刻板印象，父亲总是开着车子去办公室而不是走路去，家庭主妇和孩子则老是去逛街购物。但我们的车型整合了人与人之间的通讯结构。它的设计更像是一款机器人而不是一辆轿车。在我们的愿景中，“机器人轿车”或“移动机器人”可以改善人们的互动。
HH: When that board meeting happened in 2012, we stepped into the void left by the rejection of the other team’s concept. So, when we presented, the board said, “Yes, that’s very futuristic. We believe in that. Can you go further and deeper?” This is when we got permission to continue our work.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：在2012年的那次董事会上，其他团队提出的概念都被董事会否决了。当我们进行展示时，董事会表示：“好，这个概念非常未来主义，我们相信这个概念。你可以走得更深更远吗？”就这样，我们得到了董事会的批准，继续我们的工作。
BB: Was it inevitable that the Mercedes F 015 would take this specific shape?
奔驰F 015采取这种特别的外观是不可避免的吗？
AM: I would have preferred an interior without seats, but with movable furniture. It would be without safety belts and for just one person.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：我其实更喜欢另一种没有座位，但有可移动家具的内饰方案。那种方案没有安全带，而且只适合一个人乘坐。
BB: One person for the whole car but the same size?
一个人坐这么大的一辆车？
AM: Yes, one person for the whole car would have the ultimate luxury. You could sleep in there without any restraints. But the safety engineers said no, that’s not a good idea.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：是的，一个人占有整辆车才是终极的奢华。你可以毫无限制地在车里睡觉。但负责安全的工程师给我们亮了红灯，说那不是一个好主意。
BB: The seat was in the middle?
那个座椅是在中间吗？
HH: It was actually just a huge cushion.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：其实那只是一张巨大的床垫。
AM: Think of how the Romans would have loved it.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：想象一下，罗马人肯定会非常喜欢它。
HH: Out of all the ideas, we choose two that fit specifically to the Mercedes brand. One was a limousine type, which we called “the future mobility lounge,” which led to the F 015. We came up with a second idea for a taller car, the “future mobility loft.” But at that time, the members of the board decided on the lounge because if we consider this to be a future limousine, that’s our core competence. Mercedes is known for building high-class luxury sedans.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：在所有创意中，我们选择了两个特别适合奔驰品牌的创意进行比较。其一是豪车型，我们也称之为“未来移动休息室”，它最终演变成了今天的F 015。另一个创意中，车子的高度要高一些，它又叫“未来移动阁楼”。当时董事会选择了“休息室”概念，因为豪车是我们的核心竞争力，奔驰就是因为擅长造高端豪华轿车而出名的。
BB: So many times when we look back at futuristic concepts from the past, they look dated. Do you fear this will happen with the F 015?
很多次我们回头看以往的未来主义概念时，都会产生过时感。你担心这种情况会发生在F 015上吗？
AM: No, because you have good futuristic concepts, which look futuristic even today. Think of racing cars from the 1930s and 1940s. They still look impressive and futuristic today. And there are futuristic concepts that were ugly at the time, and people said that in ten years, everybody would grow accustomed to the design. Ten years later, they were ugly again.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：不，有些很好的未来主义概念即便在今天看起来也依然不过时。你不妨想想上世纪三四十年代的赛车，它们即便在今天看来也令人印象深刻并充满未来色彩。当然，也有些未来主义概念在当时看起来就很难看，有人说十年后人们大概就习惯了那种设计，但真到了十年后，它们依然很难看。
BB: Do you see elements of this arriving well before 2030 in, for example, the S-Class.
你认为这些元素会在2030年前出现在奔驰S级等车型上吗？
HH: Sure. As soon as the either the design or the technology is mature enough to be released, and the legal aspects are solved, we will let all this thinking go into production.
霍尔格o赫特森拉伯：当然。等到它的设计或技术足够成熟，法律方面的问题也得到解决时，我们就会把所有的想法投入量产。
AM: This is not a game. It’s too expensive to be a game.
亚历山大o曼可夫斯基：花费了这么昂贵的代价，它不可能是一个游戏。