Pope Francis goes electric with battery-powered G-Wagon for holy year in 2025

Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church is set to ride in a battery-powered G-Wagon manufactured by Mercedes. This follows the unveiling of a new “open-top” popemobile – an all-electric Mercedes-Benz on Wednesday. According to reports, Pope Francis will ride in the electric car when he greets pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square.

Recall that last month, TechNext reported that the Vatican’s Jubilee celebrations – Holy Year is set to take place in 2025 from Dec. 24 to Jan. 6, 2026. The event which comes around every 25 years in a century will also feature an Artificial Intelligence-enabled service for St Peter’s Basilica. 

Executives of Mercedes visited the Vatican on Wednesday to deliver the hand-crafted popemobile. The electric car is a renewed version of the Mercedes G-Class mid-size luxury SUV, featuring a more elevated seat for Pope Francis. This enables the crowd to have a better view of the Pope.

The battery-powered G-Wagon popemobile. Source: Mercedes-Benz Group AG

Another notable feature is the grab bar which enables Pope Francis to maintain balance when standing in the vehicle. It also comes in white colour which signifies the traditional papal colour.

While commenting on the build-up process, the Board Chair and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Group, Sten Ola Kallenius said “Every detail is perfection. It took hundreds of hours of craftsmanship to build a one-of-a-kind popemobile,” said during a conversation with Reuters. He however declined to say how much the vehicle would cost.

For a while, Mercedes-Benz Group has been struggling to sell its electric cars in a competitive market. With Pope Francis set to ride in the vehicle for the Holy Year, it might have just landed a heavenly endorsement for this product. Mercedes officials have now termed the new vehicle “the first all-electric popemobile” even though Francis has previously used electric cars on his foreign trips.

Pope Francis

Pope Francis, who has been pope since March 2013, has largely shunned bulletproof vehicles since he prefers to be as close as possible to people. Occasionally, the Pope has also stressed the importance of environmental issues throughout his papacy. 

Meanwhile, Mercedes has supplied special vehicles for the Pope for nearly a century. This includes the first bulletproof version in 1981 which was introduced after an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II the previous year. 

Pope Francis’s electric vehicle – preparations for holy year

In November, the global seat of the Catholic faith, The Vatican launched an Artificial Intelligence-enabled service for St Peter’s Basilica. The new model was modified to allow citizens and tourists to gain virtual access to the ancient church’s Renaissance-era architectural treasures during the holy year. The new experiences were unveiled as part of the Holy Year’s celebrations in 2025. The event comes around every 25 years in a century. 

For the AI model, the church collaborated with big tech company Microsoft, and Iconem, a company that specializes in heritage site digitalization. The Vatican launched a new interactive website, a digital replica of the basilica, and two AI-enabled exhibitions. On record, about 40,000-50,000 people visit the Basilica daily.

A 3D model of St. Peter’s was built scanning the basilica using drones, cameras, and lasers. AI algorithms pieced together, elaborated, and completed the data. Drones flew at night for 4 weeks, taking over 400,000 photographs and collecting the equivalent of a 6 km-high column of DVDs in data. Data from the digital twin will also be instrumental in the preservation and restoration of the project.

Visitors look at AI-generated images of corridors and rooms inside St. Peter’s Basilica as the Vatican presents a new AI-enhanced experience developed in collaboration with Microsoft for tourists visiting the Basilica at the Vatican, November 9, 2024. REUTERS/Remo Casilli/File Photo

“St. Peter’s is like a starry sky on a summer night: you remain enchanted by its splendor,” said St Peter’s archpriest Cardinal Mauro Gambetti. He also attested that the new AI tools would act like a telescope or spaceship for better viewing.

Pope Francis also acknowledged that AI can broaden access to knowledge. Meanwhile, he warned that it must only be used in an ethical way that benefits humanity. “The correct and constructive use of (AI’s) potential, which is certainly useful but can be ambivalent, depends on us,” he said.

A Holy Year usually happens once every 25 years. It can only be especially celebrated outside this period when a pope calls an extraordinary one to call attention to a particular issue or celebrate a momentous event. The first Roman Catholic Holy Year is believed to have been instigated by Pope Boniface seven centuries ago.

The Holy Doors, which symbolize the doorway of salvation for Catholics, are only opened during Jubilee years. There are four such doors in Rome — St. Peter’s Basilica, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls. St. Peter’s will be the focal point, with its door opening on Dec. 24 and closing on Jan. 6, 2026.

Read More: Holy Year: Vatican launches AI service for St. Peter’s Basilica.