Mercedes to accept legal responsibility for a vehicle when Drive Pilot is active

https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a39481699/what-happens-if-mercedes-drivepilot-causes-a-crash/

by gscott • 4 years ago

613 457 4 years ago

Interesting. Let's see how this plays out for them.

Putting your money where your mouth is, is probably the only way to obtain acceptance for semi-autonomous driving systems.

I imagine airplane manufacturers have long been on the hook if their autopilot engages Kill All Humans mode, despite the best efforts of Boeing's lawyers to blame some of the humans their software killed.

belter6• 4 years ago

Lot's of disclaimers. Plus what happens if the system disengages and you crash 5 sec after because you were not expecting to? Technically they are not responsible anymore it seems.

From the article:

"...Handing over driving responsibility completely requires extremely particular circumstances. Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany) on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems, and no construction zones. Eligible roads must be mapped by Mercedes for Drive Pilot use (similar to GM SuperCruise); the automaker has already mapped every such highway in Germany, and most of those in Nevada and California. The system will only operate during daytime, in reasonably clear weather, without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning. And no, you can't close your eyes or go to sleep while it operates..."

Limeray• 4 years ago

The car gives you a 10 seconds heads up.

From the article:

"[...] Unlike all currently available driver-assist systems, Drive Pilot is designed to give drivers a 10-second warning before switching off; engineers had to make sure that, in every situation, the system would safely and faultlessly hand over control. [...]"

dragonwriter• 4 years ago

Technically they are not responsible anymore it seems.

No, technically whether they or liable or not reverts to normal principles of product liability, rather than their special acceptance of liability.

But manufacturers liability for harms caused by their products, while varying in detail from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, tend to be pretty broad in most of the West (incl. the US, despite it's otherwise weak consumer laws.)

cge• 4 years ago

Are there even any limited-access divided highways in California where speeds under 40 mph are safe? I'm not sure what they would have mapped.

As the default speed limit for such a highway would presumably be 65 mph (and traffic usually much faster), anywhere with such lowered speeds would presumably have special circumstances that would probably make it unsuitable.

The guaranteed 10 second handoff is impressive, however.

avalys• 4 years ago

Autopilots in airplanes have nothing to do with autonomous driving.

Airplane autopilots are so simple they they can be implemented with entirely analog circuits. They are simple feedback control loops that operate off a single scalar variable in each axis.

There is ample time for the pilot to correct any “mistakes” the autopilot makes.

There is no expectation that the autopilot operates independently of the pilot’s supervision and judgement.

In terms of decision-making and autonomy and liability - an airplane autopilot is really analogous to cruise control in a car, nothing more. It operates the flight controls to maintain simple parameters chosen by the pilot, and that’s all.

belter6• 4 years ago

Not only that, Pilot training assumes Autopilot can disengage at any time.

jyrkesh• 4 years ago

Maybe the analogy would be more accurate comparing to autoland systems? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland

nradov5• 4 years ago

That's true, but some aircraft are now equipped with TCAS and GCAS which will automatically seize partial control from the pilot and maneuver to avoid some types of crashes. So far I think those systems have been 100% reliable but the manufacturers would be liable if they caused a crash.

EdwardDiego3• 4 years ago

I'm talking solely about liability when the system that you sell as being able to operate on behalf of a human gets it wrong.

Comparisons of the systems is irrelevant to the very simple point I made - putting your money where your mouth is garners trust.

As for your claim about autopilot being simple, and humans having ample time to correct its mistakes, well, two 737 MAXs and one Air France flight are very straightforward counterarguments.

judge202014• 4 years ago

Airplane autopilots are so simple they they can be implemented with entirely analog circuits.

For reference: https://www.398th.org/Research/B17_AFCE.html

tailspin2019• 4 years ago

Kill All Humans mode

I think they discovered that it was the pilots who were accidentally leaning on the that switch when getting up for a coffee break.

Terrible decision to put it right next to an armrest...

popularonion• 4 years ago

Saved you a click:

“On certain highways, below 40 mph”

MichaelRazum• 4 years ago

Actually that is exactly the right thing to do! If something goes wrong when Autopilot is on, I think the manufacturer have to prove that it was a human error and not otherwise.

Dylan16807• 4 years ago

We don't want to say "no mistakes allowed" though, that would be going too far.

It's good for manufacturers to err on on the side of limited capabilities to keep things safer, but we don't want them to err too far in that direction. And if they're providing ongoing insurance with no revenue, that's an incentive to be overly restrictive.

nradov5• 4 years ago

In a civil lawsuit for wrongful death (or whatever) the manufacturer doesn't have to prove anything. They are treated the same as any other defendant.

pontifier• 4 years ago

I was imagining a play like this utilizing insurance to smooth out the wrinkles. Seems like a fairly good bet that the restrictions are designed to essentially eliminate fault in the event of an accident.

hutzlibu2• 4 years ago

"If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours."

Only legally speaking. If the car drives me into an incoming truck, it still is very much my problem.

So currently it is only enabled for very clear situations, driving under 40 mp/h(60 kmh) in trafic jams on a motorway (where there usually is a physical separation to the other lane, except in roadbuilding situations, but I would guess, that the autopilot will be disabled then).

So it should be quite safe. Otherwise they would not accept the risk. German car makers are very conservative.

Edit: correct speedlimit

tsimionescu5• 4 years ago

Minor note: it's 40 miles /h, which is about 60km/h.

_ph_4• 4 years ago

Well, that is the catch: you can engage the system only on certain roads which also happen to have a divider between the traffic directions. So it is basically impossible to be facing an incoming truck there.

hutzlibu2• 4 years ago

Still, driving with 60 kmh into an obstacle can result in serious injuries, despite airbags.

I hope/think they considered a pointy metal, like it sometimes is on back of trailors in front of you, stabbing through the windshield for example?

35mm• 4 years ago

“If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.”

It’s still my problem if I’m inside the car whilst it crashes.

freemint2• 4 years ago

Not much at below 60 km/h max.

blackbrokkoli• 4 years ago

Deadly crashes are not uncommon on half that speed, and risk does not grow linearly.

bsza• 4 years ago

My mom is a doctor and once was called to the site of a frontal crash that happened at 100 km/h (two cars moving at 50). Only to examine the bodies, there was no one left to save.

monkeydust• 4 years ago

And that's exactly what I imagine they are factoring into their risk analysis when working out their potential liabilities.

DrBazza2• 4 years ago

“If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.”

As long-time grey-beard MB owner, and, honestly, it's not just them, the sheer amount of noise and distractions in modern cockpits is absurd now.

By this I mean, reversing sensors, slow-forward speed sensors, massive LCD screen (which may or may not be touchscreen) positioned at windscreen level, the right-hand "-ometer" that's configurable, a dial, a trackpad, a steering wheel with at least four buttons, and two 'joystick' things. And 3 instrument clusters on stalks. Heating buttons, fan, windscreen control, radio button, all down the bottom of the centre console where I have to take my eyes off the road.

It's a shit show.

My point? My current MB has never been so distracting to drive where I have to take my eyes off the road for a second to hit the demister button. Versus a car from the 1990s - no centre-LCD so the heater/demister buttons were in your peripheral vision. No touchscreen - regular buttons with tactile feed back that even had "braille like" raised paint so you could figure out where your hand was without taking your eye off the road. Don't even get me started on trying to use the radio or equaliser.

I hope, I really do, that autonomous driving works and reduces crashes, but I'm astonished there hasn't been a noticeable uptick in crashes based on just what I've written.

From the article, this is yet another button on the steering wheel. Probably because they've run out of dashboard space for all the other buttons. Auto-stop, car alarm off, assistance, sport mode, are at least 4 buttons I never use.

Where's the Jony Ive for car cockpits?

Infinitesimus• 4 years ago

Where's the Jony Ive for car cockpits?

That's the single touchscreen world of the Model 3 and Y :)

slg5• 4 years ago

Handing over driving responsibility completely requires extremely particular circumstances. Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany) on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems, and no construction zones...The system will only operate during daytime, in reasonably clear weather, without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning.

Those are some big caveats that mean that you won't be able to use this in most situations. It is basically only good for stop and go highway traffic which is a situation that other driver assist features handle pretty well.

batiudrami• 4 years ago

If that is the only use case Mercedes feel their safety assurance can justify what does that say about other self driving cars for which their manufacturers will not accept liability?

hef198987• 4 years ago

Assuming that Mercedes Benz (and all other manufacturers at that) know their shit, which they do, it says more about the self-driving competition and self-driving tech in general thann it does about Mercedes' offering.

slg5• 4 years ago

I personally would rather have a system that I can actually use when I want even if that means I need to accept liability while using it.

fastball2• 4 years ago

It doesn't say anything really. This only speaks to Mercedes and the performance of their driverless tech.

spullara• 4 years ago

This is insurance. It is all probability.

Traster• 4 years ago

It says that they’re a responsible company that isn’t comfortable playing fast and loose with your safety. Unlike some US companies that don’t come from a background of safety but a background of “move fast and break things” and a business model of regulatory arbitrage.

Vespasian8• 4 years ago

Yes but it's (according to the article) the only system that takes on any legal responsibility and guarantees a fairly long takeover window within which Mercedes will still be at fault for an accident.

All other companies don't go that far and make absolutely no promises. Sometimes their marketing wink-wink-nudge-nudges you and implies that they do the same but in reality they don't.

If this is successful you will soon see customers and regulators requiring the same for all competitors.

jstummbillig4• 4 years ago

Yes but it's (according to the article) the only system that takes on any legal responsibility and guarantees a fairly long takeover window within which Mercedes will still be at fault for an accident.

I don't think it's that big of a deal but it's clearly well done from a PR/marketing standpoint.

Insurance/warranty is just an expense from a companies POV. You control it via a combination of

a) building a well working product

b) limiting use of that product

c) putting a high enough premium on it

a) is what all customers want. b) is what Mercedes is heavily leaning into right now, because looking at the restrictions it's pretty clear that they don't think they have accomplished a) to any satisfying degree.

I am sure they will be setting c) to where their insurance math says it has to be to be financially viable.

manholio• 4 years ago

It's a marketing parlor trick. They take legal responsibility for something that cannot happen and immediately drop to human control when things turn south, like all so called "Level 3" systems.

I'm also sure they will not take any responsibility if someone rear-ends you when the car stops in confusion on the highway.

belter6• 4 years ago

These two are interesting for comparing Daimler approach, systems used, and engineering philosophy. From the first presentation, Slide 9 is interesting as review of the different levels of automation.

From Slide 23: If you don't take over when requested, after an automated stop, car will unlock the doors call to your emergency response center.

"An Automated Driving System for the Highway - Daimler" [PDF]

https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2...

"A Joint Approach to Automated Driving Systems - Daimler" [PDF]

https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/v...

Edit:

"The technical requirements"

"When the DRIVE PILOT is activated, the system continuously evaluates the route, traffic signs, and occurring traffic incidents. As a layperson it’s hard to imagine how sophisticated the hardware and software of the S-Class is in order to be ready for Level 3. Even the “normal” latest-generation Driving Assistance Package has the following:

• A stereo multi-purpose camera behind the windshield.

• A long-range radar in the radiator grille.

• Four multi-mode radars (one each on the right-hand and left-hand sides at the front and rear bumpers).

The optional parking package additionally includes:

• A 360°-Camera consisting of four cameras in the right-hand and left-hand exterior mirrors as well as in the radiator grille and at the trunk.

• Twelve ultrasonic sensors (six each at the front and rear bumpers).

"For the DRIVE PILOT, many additional components are needed besides the sensors of the Driving Assistance Package. The long-range radar in the radiator grille is combined with a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) system. Whereas radar uses radio waves, LiDAR employs pulses of infrared light in order to optically determine an object’s speed and distance and to create a highly precise map of the vehicle’s surroundings. This combines the strengths of both technologies: LiDAR sensors operate with higher precision, while radar is advantageous in bad weather, for example."

"The rear window is equipped with a rear multi-purpose camera that scans the area behind the vehicle. In combination with additional microphones, this device can, among other things, detect the flashing lights and special signals of emergency vehicles. The cameras in the driver’s display and MBUX Interior Assist are always directed at the driver so that they can determine if he or she falls asleep, turns around for too long, leaves the driver’s seat, or is unable to retake control of driving for other reasons."

https://group.mercedes-benz.com/magazine/technology-innovati...

phkahler• 4 years ago

If I can read a book then how will I know if we come to a construction zone? They cant take such conditional responsibility, it will lead to bad things.

hardtke• 4 years ago

The fundamental problem is that in order for the company to accept legal responsibility the self driving system must follow all traffic laws, and there is no way consumers will accept a car that won't go faster than the speed limit in no traffic situation.

mywacaday• 4 years ago

I wonder if there will be a long term unintended consequence where as self driving progresses into more difficult use cases people will have less overall experience and will struggle when they have to take over for more difficult scenarios like heavy rain or snow?

manigandham• 4 years ago

It's already happening with existing functionality. I know several younger drivers that struggle with parking without all the cameras and auto-park features.

BoorishBears• 4 years ago

It's weird how to this day Tesla Autopilot can only really be semi-reliably trusted in exactly the same situations this works

... but because Tesla has the reality distortion field in full effect you never hear these complaints about their solution.

Driving up sidewalks, killing people by slamming into stationary objects, people trying to sleep in your glorified ADAS guided car, all the cost of being able to claim you work in more situations.

planb• 4 years ago

Highway traffic is the one thing I would trust a self driving car with right now, and that's how most of the time is spent on long trips. If can legally watch a movie or browse the web while my car is simply following the line (including traffic jams), then I'd be perfectly happy. Just alert me 5 minutes before the exit or intersection and let me handle that.

y7• 4 years ago

I like this because these restrictions paint a very realistic picture of the current state of the art of autonomous vehicles. Any claims beyond these are likely just marketing fluff (at this point in time).

stubish• 4 years ago

Huge caveats for the initial rollout. Over here, the speed limit for divided highways with no traffic control systems is 80km/h at a minimum. I guess you need to start somewhere though, even if that is 'traffic jams on highways'.

throwaway48375• 4 years ago

It is basically only good for stop and go highway traffic

I mean if you commute regularly in a major metropolitan area that could easily be 90% of your driving.

aseerdbnarng• 4 years ago

I'd bet anything the restrictions are for insurance reasons otherwise the premiums would be too high

kube-system5• 4 years ago

It’s not about insurance, it’s about the definition of level 3 automation. It requires the vehicle to have very high confidence that it can drive without mistakes, because a human is not monitoring the driving.

Level 2 systems can often work in more conditions because they have a lower requirement for reliability. They are permitted to make mistakes without realizing it, because the human driver is required to monitor and override the system.

sva_• 4 years ago

Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph

Going below 60km/h on the Autobahn... This seems to only be useful for the narrow use case of very bad traffic.

te_chris• 4 years ago

Not unheard of on German roads.

DrBazza2• 4 years ago

Those are some big caveats that mean that you won't be able to use this in most situations

It still seems like we need to adapt the roads to autonomous vehicles and not the other way around. In the UK, and there's no indication of it whatsoever at the moment, I hope we never end up with the US's crazy car-centric town streets where as a pedestrian you can only cross at crossings, and if you get hit by 2 tons of steel, it's your fault.

antattack2• 4 years ago

Handover warning is the key limiting their liability.

Mercedes will accept legal responsibility only while DP is engaged so driver still has to pay attention and react(so called manual take-over).

DP max speed is 60km/h or 17m/s. System is likely to detect and issue under 100m away so driver has less than 5s to take over and sort it out.

jowsie• 4 years ago

They give you a 10 second window from telling you to take over control that they will still be liable for any issues.

nabla9• 4 years ago

Unlike Tesla, you can rely on it in those circumstances.

In Tesla you have to have hands on wheel all the time.

bitL• 4 years ago

Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany) on limited-access divided highways

Don't all highways in Germany have minimum speed of 70 km/h? So basically there's no road where Drive Pilot can be used?

detaro3• 4 years ago

Don't all highways in Germany have minimum speed of 70 km/h?

No. The only legal limit is that the vehicle has to be type-licensed for going more than 60 km/h, which an S-class clearly is. Actual minimum speed requirements are rare.

Nevertheless this is for now clearly primarily useful as an assistant for being stuck in bad traffic, and you can get ticketed for going slow enough to hinder traffic flow without a good reason, and if you can argue a good reason depends. An upgrade to 80 so you can stick it behind a truck in the right lane would make it a lot more practical.

freeflight3• 4 years ago

You will be able to use it in one of the most annoying situations; Heavy highway traffic with stop&go.

Nobody likes driving in that, a free highway can actually be fun, but as soon as the traffic gets dense it becomes the opposite and quite high stress.

kube-system5• 4 years ago

That’s the trade-off between level of responsibility and capability at our current level of technological progress. Level 2 systems operate in much broader conditions but have high enough rates of failure that a driver must be attentive at all times. The jump to level 3 is mostly about responsibility. That higher level of responsibility means that the car is not going to drive itself unless it’s absolutely sure it can do it by itself.

PostOnce2• 4 years ago

Whatever Mercedes says may not be what the law says. It may not be possible for them to take the liability from you. It may be criminal negligence or something else to not operate a car on a road in a state that says you have to.

Maybe they can agree to pay any civil liability you'd have, but taking a nap after you turn a car on may open you to criminal liability that Mercedes can't intervene in.

detaro3• 4 years ago

It is what the law says in this case.

PostOnce2• 4 years ago

Which law in which state in which circumstances?

If a knife salesman tells me his knives can't hurt people, and signs a contract saying he'll assume all liability, I am nevertheless liable when I stab someone with it.

The judge will say you damn well should've known you couldn't go to sleep in a car you're operating, and are in fact culpable for your negligence.

"But Mercedes said!"

"If Mercedes told you to jump (or drive) off a bridge..."

foreigner• 4 years ago

Civil liability is one thing, but what about criminal liability?

Vespasian8• 4 years ago

At least in Germany the law was ammended to allow this specific scenario.

DoingIsLearning• 4 years ago

But how far does this go? Does this mean that on root-cause analysis a particular Engineer could be criminally charged?

Tabular-Iceberg• 4 years ago

Not a lawyer, but I think that if you don’t intend for the crash to happen, and don’t act negligently you’re not criminally liable. If the automated process is designed not to require attention of the operator, it should not be considered negligent not to pay attention to it.

Maybe a similar case is how business jets that used to always require two pilots, even tiny ones like the Learjet 23. Flying one of them alone might not only be against the regulations, but even be criminally negligent if you crash and kill someone. But newer business jets have more automation and are designed for single pilot operation, so operating it alone would not be negligent.

helsinkiandrew• 4 years ago

Once you engage Drive Pilot, you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages

This is a step in the right direction - but they although they may take responsibility for any financial penalty or civil liability - but can't control what a criminal court decides.

rkagerer• 4 years ago

Neat, but the article seems a little rosy-eyed. eg:

...the software uses microphones and cameras to detect emergency lights and sirens far enough in advance to issue the full 10-second warning before manual takeover.

That doesn't help when the lights and sirens are switched on a few dozen cars away and reach you in 6 seconds.

ohgodplsno2• 4 years ago

You are not supposed to be asleep at the wheel with any of these "autopilots", nor are you supposed to be reading books or looking at your phone. What are you doing that you can't take back control of your wheel in less than a few seconds ?

trishmapow2• 4 years ago

Article clearly says that "In Germany, drivers can legally use their cellphones while Drive Pilot is engaged, a first for semi-autonomous systems". However, you can't go to sleep.

notreallyserio3• 4 years ago

Emergency vehicles don't and can't expect full compliance and open road 6 seconds after they turn on their lights and sirens, that would be irrational. It takes time to move out of the way, especially in the sort of traffic this is designed for (low-speed stop-and-go highways).

gzer0• 4 years ago

On certain highways, below 40 mph, a Drive Pilot-equipped S-Class or EQS will take control of the car's speed, steering, and brakes to move you along in traffic.

Where can one locate these specific highways that offer guaranteed legal responsibility? I seemed to have missed it in the article.

bildung• 4 years ago

Compared to the conditions under which the competition takes legal responsibility they seem quite extensive?

tsimionescu5• 4 years ago

Well, they are doing it in infinitely more broad areas than any of their competition so far...

aembleton3• 4 years ago

Germany

victorp13• 4 years ago

Self-driving cars will be popularized by people not having to pay (increasingly expensive) accident insurance. Once human driving becomes prohibitively expensive, it'll be reserved for the 'elite' who get a kick out of driving a car themselves.

paxys• 4 years ago

The way things are looking right now it's the autopilot owners who will have to pay an added insurance premium if the tech gains traction.

bjarneh2• 4 years ago

I never understood why others are not required to do so. Even when you stand outside your Tesla and "summon" it to you and it drives into something; you're somehow legally the driver?

davedx• 4 years ago

Considering you need to hold the summon button down for it to proceed, yes you are?

Kbelicius3• 4 years ago

If you were controlling the car as you would an RC car then sure. Considering that you are not in the control of the car I don't see why you should have any responsibility.

bjarneh2• 4 years ago

I don't see how that makes me "in control" of the car; I can perhaps be lucky and manage to stop it if I see some obvious a mistake coming, but you sort of trust it to "miss" things as well if you use that feature.

brianwawok4• 4 years ago

Hold to summon is a configurable option.

jfoster3• 4 years ago

It may not really be all that different between Tesla and Mercedes. The conditions that Mercedes is releasing this under sound like they will give them plenty of room to say "not covered" and need lawyers involved. Similarly, if you're using Tesla's summon feature and it drives into something, you can opt to get lawyers involved. The main difference is what these companies are telling you upfront; Mercedes seems to be saying something to the effect of "don't worry," and Tesla is telling you that you must pay attention.

orlp2• 4 years ago

If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.

If my car plows into a tree at 40mph and I get turned to mush that still sounds like a "me problem" to me.

Vespasian8• 4 years ago

True.

The difference is that Mercedes will have to pay your relatives while Tesla will say "after 2 hours on autopilot the driver wasn't able to take over in a split second"

Neither company really cares about your life and wellbeing, but one is also risking their own money and brand image. I usually trust companies to be good at judging financial consequences

orlp2• 4 years ago

Fair enough, I was just irked by this sentence in the article and had to quip. Overall I'm still ambivalent on automated driving, feeling conflicted by claims that it is safer "on average" but simultaneously painfully aware of the shortcomings of machine learning, and susceptibility to attacks.

onethought12• 4 years ago

Tesla count 5 seconds after a disengagement in "Autopilot crashes".

_ph_4• 4 years ago

This is an important step. For the first time there is full self driving where the driver is no longer require to pay attention to what the car is doing. However, this is not a generic solution. This system is limited to a very narrow set of conditions. Specifically, to premapped highways with a divider between directions, no crossings, just on- and off ramps. On top of that, at very low speed, so in normal traffic you unfortunately cannot use it either.

So how does this compare to Teslas FSD (not Autopilot, which really is only an assistant)? The answer is: not much at all. The Mercedes system has limited the conditions to a point, where it basically just has to do collision avoidance with traffic with predictable behavior. It is limited to selected roads. You don't need much "AI" here and for this task, LIDAR excels in the specified weather conditions.

The Tesla FSD system on the other side aims to be a generic driving AI. It has no limitations about on which roads it operates, it uses maps only for navigation to the destination. But the driving operation is done solely by the evaluation of camera footage. Which already works in many more environmental conditions than the Mercedes system.

These systems approach the goal from entirely two directions. The Tesla system aims to be a complete solution, but certainly is not able to do that unobserved in the current state. It is doing reasonably well at that, but the literally billion dollar question is, can it ever get so reliable, that the driver can completely hand over to car ever? On the other side Mercedes has full autonomy, but they achieved that in a very limited and controlled environment - it remains to be seen how much they can extend that.

Vespasian8• 4 years ago

Good analysis.

MB also uses cameras extensively. LIDAR and maps are used in addition.

I wonder whether these approaches will one day meet in the middle.

Tomis02• 4 years ago

The Tesla FSD system on the other side aims to be a generic driving AI. ... can it ever get so reliable, that the driver can completely hand over to car ever?

Using the current machine learning algorithms? Not likely. Imagine releasing a new airplane and telling the pilot - "this airplane flies well in 99% of scenarios, but 1% of the time it refuses to respond to pilot commands and kills everyone on board. We don't know why it happens but we'll keep training the model". That's the state we're currently at with "AI"; as someone put it, it's alchemy. If it works, we don't know why. If it doesn't, we don't know why - but we tune the parameters until it seems to work. We cannot prove it will work for every possible input. ... Not exactly a scientific approach by any means. Such self-driving cars might be accepted in USA but I imagine they'd quickly get banned in Europe after a few random fatalities.

Flankk• 4 years ago

In the 4th quarter, we recorded one crash for every 4.31 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology (Autosteer and active safety features). For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology (no Autosteer and active safety features), we recorded one crash for every 1.59 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 484,000 miles.

https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport

samhw2• 4 years ago

So how does this compare to Teslas FSD?

Well, it exists. Courtesy of Wikipedia:

In December 2015, Musk predicted "complete autonomy" by 2018. At the end of 2016, Tesla expected to demonstrate full autonomy by the end of 2017, and in April 2017, Musk predicted that in around two years, drivers would be able to sleep in their vehicle while it drives itself. In 2018 Tesla revised the date to demonstrate full autonomy to be by the end of 2019. In February 2019, Musk stated that Tesla's FSD capability would be "feature complete" by the end of 2019. In January 2020, Musk claimed the FSD software would be "feature complete" by the end of 2020, adding that feature complete "doesn't mean that features are working well". In August 2020, Musk stated that 200 software engineers, 100 hardware engineers and 500 "labelers" were working on Autopilot and FSD. In early 2021, Musk stated that Tesla would provide SAE Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021 and that Tesla plans to release a monthly subscription package for FSD in 2021. An email conversation between Tesla and the California Department of Motor Vehicles retrieved via a Freedom of Information Act request by PlainSite contradicts Musk's forward-looking statement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Autopilot#Predictions_an...

(Also, incidentally, Musk's decision to use cameras instead of LIDAR – for depth perception etc – is insane and is widely regarded as such. He's doubled down on saying LIDAR is rubbish, since the entire industry has bet on it, and presumably Tesla is too far into the woods to reverse.)

judge202014• 4 years ago

Musk's decision to use cameras instead of LIDAR – for depth perception etc – is insane and is widely regarded as such

Let me know when humans get lidar implants because they can't perceive depth via their eyes.

davnn2• 4 years ago

The big difference is that traditional automakers are almost entirely supplier-innovation-driven and their competitive advantage basically lies in the integration of these supplied parts and solutions. If there are problems with, for example, the Drive Pilot, they will likely blame the supplier of the system and force them to take responsibility/cost.

aembleton3• 4 years ago

The hardware components may be supplier driven, but who wrote the software? Isn't that from Mercedes? Its the software that takes the decisions.

Geee2• 4 years ago

Not really. They use the Nvidia Drive platform[0], and most of the software is from Nvidia.

[0] https://developer.nvidia.com/drive

davnn2• 4 years ago

There are almost no software developers working at the traditional automakers, they are working with consulting firms and software suppliers.

Volkswagen is the first traditional automaker showing large investments in software with CARIAD [1], however, according to employee reviews, it‘s very poorly managed (by people who have never worked in software).

[1] https://cariad.technology/

marban• 4 years ago

It was/is pretty clear that german car makers are going to supersede the cult of Tesla. Better engineering, history, support, network, trust and an actual taste for design. Bonus: Leadership teams that don't post gibberish about Crypto.

sixQuarks5• 4 years ago

You may want to revise your thinking. Tesla attracts the best engineers

https://electrek.co/2020/11/11/tesla-most-attractive-company...

fivestarman2• 4 years ago

Electrek and the writer of that article are heavily biased towards tesla. Also, those are inexperienced students, not established engineers. Also, that article claims that elon is "the world's most brilliant engineer", but elon isn't even an engineer and has never engineered anything.

space_rock3• 4 years ago

You missed the /s at the end

hit8run• 4 years ago

It's a bold move that signals confidence in the own system. If it works out others will probably soon follow. In 10 years cars probably drive fully autonomous.

robertlagrant2• 4 years ago

A bold press release isn't much of a prognostication aid.

throwaway4good2• 4 years ago

Quite predictable that a company using lidar in combination with video would take the lead over a company using video only.

onethought12• 4 years ago

You have a very distorted view of "the lead".

throwaway4good2• 4 years ago

I guess it is subjective.

Is it stock market price, followers on Twitter, or another criteria?

My claim is that if you narrow it down to actual autonomous driving; lidar + camera + a big chip will beat camera + a very big chip for the foreseeable future.

CJefferson2• 4 years ago

What's your definition of the lead? To me, this is huge. Tesla has never been willing to take responsibility for any crashes, instead blamining the driver.

Dave3of5• 4 years ago

All these fancy self drive cars I can't afford on a UK Principle Dev's salary so it's interesting but I'm not sure how mass market these things are or will ever be.

brianwawok4• 4 years ago

Remote job to the US will pay for one :)

globular-toast2• 4 years ago

If you work harder and longer you can buy a car you'll never have time to enjoy. Cool.

notreallyserio3• 4 years ago

I'm sure you'll be able to afford to rent one, which is the ideal scenario for most people.

fortran77• 4 years ago

What is a "principle dev?"

CRConrad• 4 years ago

A misspelled principal developer.

michelb• 4 years ago

I may be too cynical about the car industry, but wouldn't this be a great strategy from Mercedes to hamstring competitors? If they can force stricter regulations that they know/suspect competitors cannot meet, they could prevent these competitors from selling cars with their 'FSD' tech? This would level the playing field, allowing the German car manufacturers to catch up, or at least hold off competition for a while.

space_rock3• 4 years ago

100% this. They are so far behind and every move will be to use regulation against competition

jfoster3• 4 years ago

If they go through with this, awesome! I expect that they will walk some of this back before the release, though. (whether through extreme limitations on the situations they will take responsibility for, delaying release, extremely limited volume, etc.)

That said, every material step forward is a great thing. If we started out in the autonomous world that we're going to end up in, the idea of humans getting behind the wheel of a vehicle would seem incredibly crazy.

onethought12• 4 years ago

If you're insured with Tesla insurance, and you have a crash... who takes responsibility for the repair?

steeve• 4 years ago

I used to work on autonomous cars back in the early 2000s. Legal responsibility was considered one of the biggest limiting factor to autonomous cars.

Bold move.

londons_explore• 4 years ago

I'd be interested to know what legal structure they're using here.

Does the system legally act as an "insurance policy" that will indemnify the driver against any damages claims from a third party? Does it have a monetary cap? (Car insurance policies vary, but might only cover $250k, which actually won't cover many multi-car accidents).

qwerty456127• 4 years ago

We can't repair our cars, we have no privacy in when and where do we drive and now we don't even drive them nor are responsible for them. Essentially the car manufacturer plays a role of a transportation service provider now.

Ok, I'm not insisting this is bad. But now what's the point of buying a car into your ownership instead of just calling it like a taxi when and where you need it?

notreallyserio3• 4 years ago

Agreed but I'm totally cool with renting a self-driving car on demand. I don't want to own and maintain a car at all, if I can avoid it.

It sounds like a good self-driving car is going to be really expensive, too, using technologies companies like Tesla are afraid to implement (e.g. LIDAR). Renting by the minute probably makes a lot more sense financially, too.

j1elo2• 4 years ago

Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 km/h in Germany)

I just felt the urge to clarify that this is written with the intention to mislead readers, and that 40 mph are also 60 km/h in other parts of the world.

estaseuropano• 4 years ago

No need to attribute malice. Why would that be intentional? Its just ambiguous drafting.

rsynnott• 4 years ago

It's poorly written, but... mislead readers into thinking _what_? That Germany has its own special kilometers (or possibly hours?)

I think it's just bad editing.

j1elo2• 4 years ago

Sorry, the joke got lost in the text medium! After some minutes I thought that I should have added a "/joke" an "/s", or something like that, but in the end forgot to do it.

jhgb• 4 years ago

But 40 mph is 64.36 km/h, isn't it? So perhaps it turns on under 60 km/h in Germany and under 64.36 km/h everywhere else? For some weird legal reasons?

markn951• 4 years ago

Everyone responding to you earnestly without understanding the joke... lol

kevincox• 4 years ago

you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages

Until it disengages. Not until you disengage it. So close, yet so far to go.

Unfortunately since this isn't a full self driving I don't know if they can do much better. If it hits the end of the road it needs to hand control back.

globular-toast2• 4 years ago

If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.

And the person you hit. Unbelievable that we value these metal boxes on wheels more than human bodies.

avar6• 4 years ago

I wonder how much of this is part of a genuine attempt to bring a safe product to market, and how much is to pressure the German government (and soon thereafter, the EU) into making this sort of promise mandatory for all car manufacturers, including those that are ahead of Mercedes in the self-driving space. I.e. to create a legislative moat in an area where they're behind.

While I don't agree with Tesla's strategy of playing it fast & loose, I'm afraid that risk aversion will lead us to demand perfect instead of the good enough.

A car manufacturer might not be willing to accept 100% liability, but their system might still be a lot safer than a drunk driver returning home from the bar.

Realistically we're not going to be able to pick "well, don't drive drunk then!", it'll happen. By demanding that these system are that reliable before they're in common operation we'll have incurred a net loss in terms of safety.

I don't know what the right solution is, probably some mixture of the two. Clearly you don't want manufacturers to be incentivized to ignore the risk associated with their systems, but you also don't want these systems not to be offered when they'd be a net gain in safety.

The point at which they're a net gain is not the same point that they become financially viable to the manufacturer from a liability point of view.

jonfw• 4 years ago

I know we all hate subscription models, but for self driving it makes sense. If car manufacturers are expected to be liable for their self driving cars, then they should be charging money to their customers so they can insure them.

Manufacturers who produce safer self driving vehicles will have to spend less to insure their fleet, and be more competitively priced. This at least gets the incentives right

foepys• 4 years ago

I don't want car manufacturers insuring vehicles. This would lead to inflated prices because manufacturers know that you cannot sell your vehicle at any time.

dahfizz• 4 years ago

For an actually fully autonomous car without a steering wheel, maybe. But for a car that can engage autopilot when you choose, absolutely not. Even if the self driving software is a monthly fee, the car is something you should be able to own and control.

jameshart3• 4 years ago

“Safer than a drunk driver” is a crazy low bar.

At the .08 BAC legal limit odds of crashing a car are 200% higher than a sober driver. The risks obviously increase with higher alcohol levels. A .16 ‘double the legal limit’ drunk is 1500% more likely to crash. See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/09/how-j...

So yeah, ‘safer than a drunk driver’ means basically ‘only about twice as likely to crash as an average sober human’.

adrianN• 4 years ago

There are gadgets that prevent the car from starting when your BAC is too high. Clearly we need the opposite for activating the autopilot.

lvh3• 4 years ago

Should we let drunk people get home in their fully autonomous Mercedes? It's an interesting problem!

I think the answer right now is no, we're still requiring the driver to be able to take over, and our thought experiment presupposes they're inebriated.

On the other hand, it's obviously better to have the computer take a shot (no pun intended) at getting home than letting the driver do it themselves, even today. At what point does that moral balance tip? It seems like we're not too far off from the answer being "obviously let the car drive, whatever the drunk person was going to do is probably riskier for both themselves and everyone else".

jchw• 4 years ago

Exactly. And yet, many people choose to do exactly this on a regular basis.

Granted, it becomes an issue when people who wouldn’t drive drunk decide to use self-driving functionality simply because is there. But, there will be a point where it crosses over into being a net improvement, and that point may very well be a fair bit before meeting parity with humans. Obviously it’s not quite that simple (not all failure modes are equal) but it’s not that far off, either…

sneak• 4 years ago

200% increased chance of crashing would be 3x as likely to crash.

A 100% increase would be 2x as likely.

tmpz22• 4 years ago

Why not lower all regulations based on the fact that some people do them drunk? Doctors? Bus drivers? Security forces?

buttercraft• 4 years ago

At the .08 BAC legal limit odds of crashing a car are 200% higher than a sober driver.

What are the odds of a sober driver crashing a car?

hammock2• 4 years ago

200% (2x) higher is not as high as I believe many would guess. If you did a straw poll you'd likely get answers like 10x, 20x etc. Hell SOBER driving had 10x more crashes when you/your parents were learning to drive compared to you/your kids.[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

mywittyname3• 4 years ago

That's not a low bar at all. A lot of activities people do while driving are way more dangerous that driving "drunk". In fact, "drunk" (0.08 BAC) driving is often the baseline multiple that such activities are reported in.

Self-driving cars which are merely as safe as driving with a 0.08BAC will still greatly reduce traffic accidents. Of course, no one will report it as such. Having something that's paying attention 100% of the time is going to be a huge boon for traffic safety. Spending 15 seconds picking a song on your phone is all it takes to rear end a car or blow through an intersection.

huhtenberg• 4 years ago

risk aversion will lead us

Not wanting to crash into random things when rolling at 120 km/h is not "risk aversion". It's just common sense.

lvh3• 4 years ago

I think you're making OPs point for them. Real drivers also crash into things. Self-driving cars don't have to be perfect all of the time. Inebriated and distracted drivers already cause disproportionate problems: self-driving, even one that makes a mistake once in a blue moon, is preferable than some dude on their phone who hasn't noticed the traffic in front of them has slowed down. (And 120 km/h sounds like highway cruising: precisely the sort of place where self-driving cars have a relatively easy time and "better than humans" is not very far off from where we are today.)

jjoonathan• 4 years ago

Nice clip. The quote was:

risk aversion will lead us to demand perfect

And no, perfection is not a reasonable bar.

littlestymaar• 4 years ago

While I don't agree with Tesla's strategy of playing it fast & loose, I'm afraid that risk aversion will lead us to demand perfect instead of the good enough.

I'm actually afraid of the opposite: where self-driving becomes so associated with failures and danger in the mind of the public that the technology never take off.

And it doesn't take that much effort to make the public afraid of something, just look how terrified of shark people are.

bko2• 4 years ago

Tesla gets a lot of flak about driver security, but this is incredibly irresponsible.

Once you engage Drive Pilot, you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages. You can look away, watch a movie, or zone out. If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.

If the car crashes, it's your problem primarily because you're the one in the car that could be injured. Maybe they'll pay for repairs or your hospital bills or even a loaner, but its primarily your problem. We have to remember the limitations of these systems and accept that they're level 2 and require full attention

freeflight3• 4 years ago

Tesla gets a lot of flak for advertising Autopilot in a misleading way. Advertising with functionality and liability that could exist at some point but simply doesn’t.

What Mercedes does here is not just empty advertising, it’s offering actual lvl 3 autonomous driving complete with the car being liable in those situations.

Which in practice means Mercedes can actually deliver what Tesla so far has only been advertising with; Taking your attention actually away from the street to watch a movie or check your emails.

This is not a “problem”, it’s the literal definition of lvl 3 autonomous driving; Car takes liability in certain situations to such a degree that the driver is legally pretty much just a passenger.

NovemberWhiskey2• 4 years ago

How is this different from riding as a passenger in a taxi, for example?

Also: Drive Pilot is a level 3 system, not a level 2 system. That's the entire point.

NamTaf• 4 years ago

It is in fact the opposite, because it sets the bar at that level understanding that people treat Tesla’s autopilot in the same way. Tesla just hide their relatively lower capability behind a legal out.

People do not care what “level” their driverless control is. After a certain point of “it seems to do everything”, they assume it does everything. If they think they can get away with letting it take control, they will.

Requiring automotive manufacturers to deal with this is manifestly responsible. It is demanding an engineering control over an admin one in the hierarchy of risk controls, and that ecpectation is in line with how every non-software engineering discipline of engineering approaches the world.

kube-system5• 4 years ago

Tesla gets flak because they have repeatedly implied (or flat out said) that their level 2 system drives itself. This is a level 3 system, so it actually does drive itself.

Level 3 is the lowest level where “the car drives itself”

https://www.motorweek.org/images/SAE_Chart.png

AniseAbyss• 4 years ago

Is Mercedes behind or are fanboys overestimating Tesla/Musk?

German cars are designed for cities American cars are designed for LA.

linspace2• 4 years ago

As road safety is a win for the whole of society and not only the driver it would make sense to incentivize safety at the government level. On the other hand there are already incentives in the form of insurance, which is mandatory at least in most (all?) places and should take into account vehicle safety. If autonomous vehicles are safer insurance premiums should go down for them, as it happens for example for vehicles with smaller power trains.

giantg22• 4 years ago

Maybe. It seems that some of that would be offset by the higher cost of the vehicle for the comprehensive part of the insurance.

"as it happens for example for vehicles with smaller power trains."

Is this still true? I know they did some HP based stuff in the 70s-80s, but thought they did away with that since then.

mempko2• 4 years ago

I don't know what the right solution is, probably some mixture of the two. Clearly you don't want manufacturers to be incentivized to ignore the risk associated with their systems, but you also don't want these systems not to be offered when they'd be a net gain in safety.

The right solution has always been public transportation. It's just, you won't hear that from car companies. The right solution to self driving cars is not to have any cars.

dangerface• 4 years ago

Its about control, if the car can drive itself and the manufacture is always held responsible then there is no incentive to selling cars. The incentive to charge for transport is still there Mercedes would become the next Uber and the World Economic Forum would get the dystopian future it has always dreamed of.

You will own nothing and like it.

mrighele2• 4 years ago

Even if it was the EU doing, it has nothing to do with demanding perfect instead of good. It's about blaming who/what is doing the actual driving when an accident happens. I think it's perfectly sensible.

Put in another way, I don't expect my taxi driver to be perfect, in fact I probably drive more safely than most of them. But if they get into an accident it's their fault, not mine.

judge202014• 4 years ago

That's the OP's point, if you blame it simply because it's driving, you're incentivizing the systems to only work when it thinks it's 100% safe to drive. It's how you get "you can only engage on pre-defined major highways and only during daylight".

brk• 4 years ago

But isn't the human always ultimately in control of the vehicle? Any time the car is set in motion, it is the result of a human request, they don't just randomly drive around for fun. Just because the human farms out some of the monotony of driving, does that absolve them from setting the vehicle in motion in the first place?

For now I'm leaving aside things like "summon my car to me", or "tell the car to randomly drive around until it finds a parking spot" where no human would be present in the vehicle at all because I think those kinds of scenarios are still a very long long way off, where the vehicles can be expected to move with no supervision at all.

mannykannot• 4 years ago

I'm afraid that risk aversion will lead us to demand perfect instead of the good enough.

Then Mercedes' move is exactly the sort of pragmatic, no-bullshit yardstick you want. 'Putting your money where your mouth is' is a widely-understood and respected way of showing you are not bullshitting.

Current liability laws have not forced car manufacturers to make perfectly safe vehicles (which, would, of course, kill the industry), and there's no reason to assume they will do so for self-driving cars.

bodhi_mind• 4 years ago

Does this mean that the CEO or board members will be held liable for criminal manslaughter charges if their vehicle runs someone over?

bratwurst30003• 4 years ago

Thats a good question. What does it mean to take responsibillity? I cant imagine that someone of mercedes will be accused of manslaughter, but this is taking responsibillity

Edit: if something happens you have 10 seconds to react . I don’t know if in that 10 seconds those responsibility counts.

SimonPStevens• 4 years ago

Accepting liability doesn't mean they require the system to be perfect.

Accepting liability really just comes down to who's insurance company pays when it fails.

If the manufacturer can demonstrate to the insurance company that their self driving system fails less frequently (or lower overall cost of claims payouts) than human drivers then the insurance company will happily charge a lower premium for cover. Even if it's not perfect. The closer the system can be demonstrated to be to perfect the lower the insurance premium is going to fall.

There is certainly a regulatory moat being set up here as it will prevent new startups from entering the space unless they can find an insurance company willing to cover their risk profile, which in turn means demonstrating a suitably high level of safety to keep the premiums affordable. But I think in this matter I want a level of regulation that says if you're making something that's used on public roads, and risks injuring or killing people you'll accept liability when it goes wrong. It's not much different from the system of mandatory insurance for drivers in most countries. If you're going to drive on the roads, you must meet a minimum insurance level whereby you can accept liability for any failure that causes damage to other property or people.

tablespoon6• 4 years ago

A car manufacturer might not be willing to accept 100% liability, but their system might still be a lot safer than a drunk driver returning home from the bar.

I don't care what they're willing to accept. It's a total cop-out to not "accept 100% liability" for a self-driving system they built, and instead avoiding responsibility by insisting on an inhuman-level of human monitoring. If they're not willing to build a reliable system (or buy enough insurance to pay out the claims when their system crashes), then they simply shouldn't be selling production self-driving cars, period.

The "drunk driver returning home from the bar" problem has been solved. It's called a taxi. No need for defective self driving cars for that case.

rhino369• 4 years ago

I'm skeptical they could even avoid liability in the first place. Products liability is hard to avoid.

darkwater4• 4 years ago

The "drunk driver returning home from the bar" problem has been solved. It's called a taxi. No need for defective self driving cars for that case.

It hasn't be solved at all, there are still too many deaths on road due to drunk/high drivers.

caddemon2• 4 years ago

Yes drunk driver is not the right bar, but I think he still has a point. If the accident rate is less than overall human accident rate we should want to use the self driving cars, but the accident rate might still be high enough that a car company wouldn't want to claim 100% liability for every single accident.

Car accidents are one of the top causes of premature death in the US. Self driving cars aren't there yet, but when they are an improvement on human driving they should be encouraged, even if the absolute numbers are still not amazing.

donatj• 4 years ago

It's called a taxi

Try finding a taxi in about 99% of the US more than a few miles out from big cities.

I live just outside Minneapolis and we were SOL until Lyft arrived. Lyft and Uber still aren't available in most small towns. This is not "solved".

avar6• 4 years ago

    > If they're not willing to [...] buy enough insurance to
    > pay out the claims [...] they [...] shouldn't be selling
    > [these] self-driving cars, period.

The problem with this view is that you're assuming that the current risk created by drivers that society would benefit from moving to self-driving systems is priced into their current driving, or into their insurance.

Western countries have mostly decided that society should simply eat that cost.

If a child gets killed by a negligent driver the driver or their insurance is almost certainly not going to be "fairly" compensating anyone, to the extent that such a thing is even possible when it comes to losing a human life.

There was a case in The Netherlands[1] where a grossly negligent driver killed 2 year old and her grandparents by rolling their car over them in a turn they were speeding through. The driver got probation, and a bit of community service.

On reflection I don't even think that's a bad outcome per-se. Very few people could truthfully report that they've never broken the traffic law in a similar manner even once.

It's mostly just moral luck that decides the difference between that being something stupid you did in your 20s with no repercussions, and another equally irresponsible person being unlucky enough to kill a child.

So should that person spend 20 years in prison and be subject to wage slavery for the rest of their life as a result? Probably not.

Now, imagine the same outcome, except this time the CEO of Tesla or Mercedes is going to have to answer in court for it. "Mr. Musk, why isn't your company paying out these parents fairly?". Of course a self-driving car is unlikely to accidentally make that specific mistake, but statistically the outcomes might be comparable.

My point upthread is that we're almost certain to end up over-pricing the risk caused by self-driving vehicles, while directly and indirectly subsidizing the continued operation of motor vehicles by even more flawed human beings.

People are simply bad at reacting to diffuse v.s. concentrated risk, and are inherently conservative when it comes to evaluating the risk of something new, v.s. an even riskier activity they've gotten used to.

1. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/watch-father-throw-...

viscanti• 4 years ago

What if the person doesn't maintain their car? What if they drive through mud that partially covers some sensors? It seems like there are lots of things outside the control of the manufacturer. It's probably best to see if any future accidents are because of errors with the system or end user errors. Anything else is doomed to failure.

buu7002• 4 years ago

Since you brought up insurance, here's a third option: leave it up to manufacturers and consumers to determine how liability is structured in their private agreements, but make self-driving car insurance mandatory. This could even be enforced by mandating that new vehicles refuse to activate self-driving mode without a valid token as proof of insurance.

With a system like that, the market would ultimately work out an optimal solution. Vehicles with safer technology and greater manufacturer liability would be subject to lower insurance rates, while on the other end of the spectrum consumers would be responsible for paying for the externalities of their choices. No one is going to use a self-driving mode that costs more than the vehicle itself to insure, so in theory manufacturers will be more strongly incentivized to get this right.

Edit: A follow-up thought: self-driving car insurance should be independent of manual car insurance. They could be bundled together for savings, but someone who doesn't intend to drive manually shouldn't be required to purchase two types of insurance. Eventually, as the technology improves, self-driving insurance will become cheaper than manual insurance.

This model also neatly solves the current issue of enforcing insurance requirements. If self-driving mode can require a valid insurance token, then so can manual driving mode.

thrwy_ywrht• 4 years ago

The "drunk driver returning home from the bar" problem has been solved. It's called a taxi. No need for defective self driving cars for that case.

This is just wishful thinking. This is a description of what people should do, not what people actually do, and I don't see what relevance it has to the discussion. Millions of people drive while over the limit of alcohol consumption [1]. It is totally plausible that self-driving cars could radically reduce that number and improve overall safety even if they are not perfectly safe and occasionally cause accidents.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/millions-of-americans-admit-to-...

Al-Khwarizmi• 4 years ago

You can say that "drunk driving is solved" if you speak from the point of view of the driver, because of course one can avoid it. But that's not too relevant.

Getting killed by a drunk driver (which is actually the real problem) is far from solved. It's something that can happen to anyone.

chmod600• 4 years ago

"The "drunk driver returning home from the bar" problem has been solved."

No, it has not. Taxis have been around as long as cars, and people are still dying.

Drowsy driving hasn't been solved, either.

wolverine8763• 4 years ago

self-driving system they built

It's not 'self-driving', it's driven by Mercedes's developers.

TheKarateKid• 4 years ago

It's a total cop-out to not "accept 100% liability" for a self-driving system they built

And what exactly is the liability for anyone produces cars that go well above and beyond every legal speed limit? By your logic, any car made that can go above the highest legal limit in a country should be held 100% liable for any accident occurring in that condition.

A certain level of data should be collected and available upon every crash like with airplanes. If the manufacturer is found at fault due to a flaw in their design, then they should be liable.

raxxorrax• 4 years ago

You can measure the confidence of the manufacturers, which seem to opt for beta testing on the roads. But I agree that it is probably a move to attack competitors.

Personally I wouldn't want to be near automatically driving vehicles for now. Maybe because I worked in computer vision and even with drastic advancement of the field, the possibilities are still quite primitive, even with "AI" support. Sure, I could get hurt by a drunk driver. But they are also not allowed on the roads for that matter.

I think a solution is to restrict the zones which an autopilot is allowed to be active at first. Ultimately the driver must be responsible. He made the decision to activate the auto pilot. Manufacturers should be forced to be honest about the capabilities though.

sixQuarks5• 4 years ago

You’re looking at the problem wrong.

There are 1.35 million deaths per year attributed to car crashes. I don’t know about you, but I would rather companies play loose and fast rather than take forever to figure out the perfect solution. If it takes five years longer, that’s more than 7 million deaths.

Even if self driving cars are responsible for 1000 deaths per year, which they won’t be, it would still be well worth playing fast and loose.

hef198987• 4 years ago

It took mankind a long way to learn that security (EDIT: I meant safety, it does apply to security as well so IMHO) and "fast and loose" don't go together. That's why traffic related death are as low as they have ever been.These lessons are codified in all the regulation around that stuff.

That being said, the number you stated is world wide? If so, it's not the one to use. And just ignoring the overall trend, in death per km / mile driven, is just disengenious.

hristov• 4 years ago

I do not see how this can be an attempt "to create a legislative moat in an area where they're behind". If they are behind in self driving they would not want to raise the stakes by creating this higher liability hurdle which another company can handle better. Any way you look at it if this were an attempt to get a competitive advantage through using the liability laws, then it must only mean that Mercedes are certain that they are ahead in the field of self driving not behind.

I very much welcome this development and it is, in my opinion, necessary for level 3 autonomous driving. By definition, level 3 autonomous driving implies that the car must take responsibility. The Level 3 definition says that the driver may take his attention off the road and does not need to supervise the technology (if the conditions are right).

Regarding drunk driving, if the machines start killing people, good luck explaining to the victims and the scared public that it may have been worse if they were drunk drivers. The fact is that new technology usually requires notably higher performance to replace the old, this will be the case with self driving, so we may as well embrace that and go forward.

KingOfCoders2• 4 years ago

You want millions of cars on the level of drunk drivers?

LanceH• 4 years ago

There are probably millions of sober drivers on the level of drunk drivers.

KingOfCoders2• 4 years ago

So Boeing should not be responsible for their software failures?

142• 4 years ago

Drunk driving has been solved and is on the horizon. Soon manufacturers will be required to include the technology in the cars somewhere around 2026 in North America and possibly sooner in Europe. There might be a combination of technology used such as at wheel breath test, sensors on the wheel that detect alcohol excretion in your skin, eye sensors that detect impairment and drowsiness, sensors that detect impaired driving based on how well you stay in your lane. Unsure what tech will be most common but change is on the horizon.

nemetroid2• 4 years ago

Note that drunk driving is much less socially accepted in Europe than in the U.S. A post on this topic was actually at the top of /r/germany just a week ago:

https://old.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/tejhxv/all_my_amer...

"All my American friends drive after drinking and I don't know what to do"

avar6• 4 years ago

Several European countries "beat" the US (in a bad way) when it comes to alcohol-related traffic incidents:

https://www.itf-oecd.org/alcohol-related-road-casualties-off...

A friendly reminder from a fellow European that the entire continent isn't part of Germany :)

hammock2• 4 years ago

I wonder how much of this is part of a genuine attempt to bring a safe product to market, and how much is to pressure the German government (and soon thereafter, the EU) into making this sort of promise mandatory for all car manufacturers, including those that are ahead of Mercedes in the self-driving space. I.e. to create a legislative moat in an area where they're behind.

Mercedes is just going to place the assumed liability with a reinsurance company anyway. It seems like a very efficient solution to ensure accountability SOMEWHERE without vast amounts of litigation every time there is an incident. It's honestly hard to see how self-driving vehicles will ever meaningfully make it to the consumer market without an agreement like this.

traceroute66• 4 years ago

A car manufacturer might not be willing to accept 100% liability

It won't be the car manufacturer, but their insurance underwriter who has the final say (unless the car manufacturer self-insures, which, let's face it, is a non-starter).

I'm not sure if you've ever dealt with business insurance, let alone underwriters.

Underwriters tend to be, by definition, fairly boring risk-averse types.

If you catch them on a good day, they might be willing to make a few relatively small adjustments to their standard wording in order to relax the scope a bit.

However this assumes you are lucky enough to be dealing with one underwriter. If you're having to pool at Lloyds, then the chances of you being able to get significant wording relaxation drops dramatically because everyone in the pool has to agree, not just one underwriter.

You'll never find an underwriter willing to cover 100% liability for anything under the sun. That's just not how it works. Especially with new and little-understood risks such as self-driving.

lamontcg• 4 years ago

Unfortunately Tesla has been completely irresponsible, so I'm entirely in favor of the moat.

And this addresses the "uncanny valley" of driverless cars, where the car does everything up until you're expected to leap into immediate action to prevent it from killing someone, even though for hours you may have been doing nothing.

The technology really does need to be all-or-nothing. The in-between solution that Tesla is trying to exploit isn't reasonable given how human minds operate.

bdcravens• 4 years ago

Realistically we're not going to be able to pick "well, don't drive drunk then!", it'll happen

I don't think legislators will ever accept the safer criminal activity argument.

HWR_147• 4 years ago

I wonder how much of this is part of a genuine attempt to bring a safe product to market, and how much is to pressure the German government (and soon thereafter, the EU) into making this sort of promise mandatory for all car manufacturers

I'm fine with a company saying "We don't think we can do X safely, therefore we don't devote as much to research doing X, therefore we don't want to be penalized in the market because people who do X unsafely can obfuscate the risks and sell it to the market." And then attempt to create standards to do X safely. That seems reasonable to me.

ralmidani• 4 years ago

Mercedes is perhaps the only auto company that is both supremely innovative and supremely respectable at the same time.

Tesla is innovative, but they get ahead of themselves, and Musk is a glorified internet troll who bullies and arguably lies.

The Big 3 are respectable in that they don’t really overhype or misrepresent, but Mercedes will probably out-innovate them in self-driving like they’ve out-innovated them (and pretty much everyone else) in just about every other aspect that matters over the past century.

Disclaimer: I drive a Toyota Sienna and a Subaru Outback. But I’ve seen a few Mercedes up close (and sometimes driven them) over the years. The only really crappy one in my experience was the ~2006 G500.

1970-01-012• 4 years ago

I stopped respecting Mercedes engineering when they (and the others) were caught cheating (x2) on emissions. IMHO, they all had a better chance to compete with Tesla, but they took the path of cheating and global pollution.

https://jalopnik.com/mercedes-may-have-been-caught-using-def...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_emissions_scandal#Merce...

mempko2• 4 years ago

Kind of interesting then that Mercedes was an early Tesla investor. Seems at least someone in Mercedes saw the future.

carlivar• 4 years ago

Is there a statute of limitations on that, or are they tainted forever?

Workaccount2• 4 years ago

I've never worked on Mercedes, but if it's anything like BMW, its the equivalent of overtly complex spaghetti code hidden behind a super nice interface.

judge202014• 4 years ago

Mercedes' tech is largely a joint effort with Luminar, so I'm not sure you can consider them innovative in themselves, they probably just know when and where to invest to stay in the game.

judge202014• 4 years ago

he only really crappy one in my experience was the ~2006 G500.

Try the CLA 250. Their mid and high ends are pretty nice, but they tried to target <40k without sacrificing too much of their margins.

zaat• 4 years ago

The comparison with Tesla baffles me. One is a fairly common car with limited self driving abilities that are commonly used all over, the other is an exclusive model. Tesla sells each quarter an order of magnitude more than they yearly sells of s-class. Most of the s-class are irrelevant - they are not sold in Germany.

When Mercedes will make this feature and promise available to each A-class sold worldwide we will be able to compare abilities. This day will come some time in the future, but the current move is not leading me to believe that Mercedes is a safer bet then Tesla.

pavon• 4 years ago

I think GM is doing a pretty good job. Super Cruise is one of the better driver assist technologies on the market today. And Cruise (unrelated despite the name) is second only to Waymo in full self-driving technology. Mary Barra has stated that they want to sell cars with Cruise technology once it is sufficiently mature, not just offer a ride service.

nosefrog• 4 years ago

FWIW, my friend at Cruise thinks that GM is messing up the company.

moron4hire• 4 years ago

Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph...

Ah, so maybe this would be great for getting around town.

... on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems...

Oh, so not where the majority of driving happens.

... and no construction zones.

And none of Pennsylvania.

dusted• 4 years ago

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I'm pretty sure someone at Mercedes just did the math, and concluded that the number they're expecting to pay in damages is a smaller number than the profit from the extra sales.

Nothing wrong with that as it is, but while it can be seen as a signal that "Mercedes is super sure their cars won't kill anyone" it should be seen more as a signal that "Mercedes is pretty sure they'll make a profit even when subtracting the price of killing people."

kkfx• 4 years ago

I'm more concerned about "gray areas" where I'm driving but a proprietary computer system in my car have the real control so at a certain point in time it might decide to break or steer or refuse to for some programmed reasons I do not know.

Just imaging actual emergency braking systems: you see an accidents and you decide that the best option is going against another vehicle or even a wall for instance to avoid crushing on a school group on a trip. Actual system do not and can't know that, they'll try to stop your emergency maneuver and due to the little time you have even if formally deactivate you can't deactivate them. Who will be responsible and how to prove what really happen?

That's the issue of automation. I can't trust back box logs from a proprietary black box designed, built and installed by the same company who sell the car. Who can? Even public authorities how much practical resources can have to really investigate?

Geee2• 4 years ago

Traffic jam assistant is like the hello world of autonomous driving. It's basically an example project from Github. They are not even approaching the hard problems which Tesla, Openpilot etc. are solving.

giantg22• 4 years ago

I assume they mean civilly liability. I believe most states still require a driver behind the wheel and will level the criminal/driving penalties against that driver.

tomp• 4 years ago

I wonder this as well. Unless it's the CEO/CTO going to jail, it's not actual responsibility... it's just "we'll pay you some tiny amount if we kill someone" YOLO

hogrider• 4 years ago

This is the only acceptable result to society and if they limit responsibility it eill only be due to industry lobbying and in benefit to no one else. This can't be an externality for everyone else, if it is too much of a burden sinply don't sell your murderous half baked self driving and we'll keep going on like before.

1970-01-012• 4 years ago

>If the car crashes while Drive Pilot is operating, that's Mercedes' problem, not yours.

Unfortunately, no matter how much legislation you put in front of it, that's not how physics works.

rotanibmocy2• 4 years ago

That system is hardly "self-driving". From the article, it will work only under 40 mph in certain highways only. It's way behind other competitors

anonu• 4 years ago

This really sets a new standard in expectations around how safe and reliable these products are. TSLA probably has a significant head-start in terms of technology - but here's a new (call it marketing) feature by Mercedes that actually leap frogs over Tesla in terms of perception on the product.

I think in 3-5 years everyone else will have caught up to tesla and we'll have a more level playing field, mainly in terms of the technology and AI. And "marketing" features like this help accelerate the closing of the gap.

evancoop• 4 years ago

The next question is how Lloyd's of London will handle the insurance risk at scale. Clearly, Mercedes is going to need one heck of an insurance contract to justify the policy. What happens if the system is hacked and the number of payouts required reaches stratospheric proportions? What quantity of secondary insurance will be needed for the insurer?

Fascinating questions.

brianwawok4• 4 years ago

I doubt it's even connected to the internet. Odds of being hacked would seem no different from cruise control of a random Toyota.

gigel82• 4 years ago

I doubt this is legal. If your car kills someone, you're going to jail. Mercedes, the company, cannot do jail time; it can at most pay fines - and there's no legal system in the world today that would accept it.

And if it does, we'll just get a few enterprising folks delivering "hitman as a service" in no time at all (driving hacked Mercedes vehicles into people claiming no responsibility).

dangus2• 4 years ago

I see this as a major signal to the outside world that Mercedes feels confident in its technology.

Mercedes must really think it has a better system than its competitors.

Either that or these expenses are going to be considered part of its marketing spend?

Another thought: isn't it still usually the responsibility of the at-fault party's insurance company to pay out for crashes anyway? Or, in no-fault states, each insurance company covers their own driver and passengers, so it's not really important who cases a crash.

I wonder if this announcement is legally meaningless in most cases...but I'm not expert in this area.

buro9• 4 years ago

This doesn't seem unreasonable.

If you consider that it is the driver who is liable today for road traffic incidents (including failing to adapt to environmental conditions)... then why wouldn't the "driver" still be liable when the driver changes?

https://www.synopsys.com/automotive/autonomous-driving-level...

In this it's plain that Level 3 autonomy is the first level where it's considered that the car is the driver. This is what Mercedes are proposing, to accept that the sum of software and hardware that they provide at Level 3, assuming it's used in the situations and conditions described, is the driver and that they are liable.

Those caveats seem reflected in what they're proposing (if the article is accurate), and it seems reasonable.

theluketaylor• 4 years ago

Legal liability seems like a much cleaner way to define autonomy for the general public than the SAE levels. If the person is responsible anything the car is doing is assistance or aid. If the manufacturer owns liability it's some level of autonomous. There needs to be some kind of law about how long the car has to alert the driver before handing over liability, but beyond that it's a much cleaner divide.

This would also solve issues like Tesla naming their level 2 systems 'Autopilot' and 'Full Self Driving'. I love my Model 3, but those names are deeply misleading at best and downright fraudulent at worst. The FTC really needs to step in and regulate what manufacturers can claim based on liability.

duttaoindril• 4 years ago

I love this. I genuinely do. But I can't help but imagine some dystopian future where they regret making this decision and they start fighting legal cases on the technicalities like, oh they crashed after they disengaged self driving, so it's the humans fault. Or even worse, they program in self driving to disengage when a crash is imminent. When companies take on liabilities, they're very unlikely to actually pay for it. Leaving the common folk to struggle.

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

This is the only way this can work legally.

If the car causes a crash, the car manufacturer has to be liable. End of story.

As long as the self driving system performs well, it should be a win for everyone!

Mercedes to accept legal responsibility for a vehicle when Drive Pilot is active

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