Mercedes trials in-car delivery in Berlin
Mercedes-Benz has started a pilot program for in-car package delivery in Berlin, Germany called Chark.
The program is part of Daimler’s Lab1886 innovation centre, which devises and tests new programs outside the traditional core business.
The pilot program is open to owners of 2015-or-newer Mercedes-Benz passenger cars, as well as the V-Class van.
Online purchases are ordered and paid for directly in the respective online shop as usual.
chark works simply: the user temporarily gives the digital vehicle key of the parked car to a service provider he/she has previously booked. The vehicle can only be unlocked and locked once, and cannot be moved. If a customer wishes to have an online purchase delivered directly to the boot of the car, he or she enters the address of the chark hub as the delivery address when ordering, and his or her personal chark ID as an address supplement.
The user can decide the time window and parking location in which the service provider is permitted to open the vehicle. As soon as the delivery service is within a range of 500 meters of the indicated parking location, it is able to locate the vehicle by GPS and unlock it once.
The user is always notified when the delivery is under way. When the delivery order is completed, the user receives a delivery report including photos.
