Mercedes-Benz to accept Motorola mobile cell phones

Mercedes-Benz to accept Motorola mobile cell phones
PARK RIDGE, Ill. — Mercedes-Benz said this week that it will make Motorola's hugely popular V60 cell phone available for its vehicles. The V60, one of Motorola's biggest sellers, will be endowed with voice-recognition capabilities to deal with driver distraction legislation already on the books in New York State, and expected elsewhere.

Available through Mercedes-Benz this December, the V60 will slide into a docking station located in the center console of a vehicle. Voice recognition software will reside in the phone, as well as in a telematics processor on board the car.

The Mercedes-Benz announcement follows one made last week by Chrysler Group, which said it would supply an electrical architecture for Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones by 2003, and shows that DaimlerChrysler is embracing the use of portable cell phones in vehicles as a means of dealing with driver distraction.

General Motors' OnStar service, which involves the use of permanently embedded cell phones, is still the dominant model for automotive telematics, with over one million subscribers.