Four years ago, Daimler dazzled with a self-driving luxury lounge in Las Vegas with a concept vehicle boasting a sleek interior that promised to pamper its well-heeled passengers into the automotive future.

This year the Mercedes-Benz maker is back at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, though with a more utilitarian slant: a bubble-like autonomous shuttle designed to reliably ferry people and goods around town at limited speeds.

The move from glittery luxury concepts to box-shaped people movers underscores a shift in the race toward autonomous vehicles. While driverless cars might not populate public roads for some time, shuttle services in confined areas have started to look more feasible, at least over the next few years.
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