Mercedes-Benz is first to get approval for Level 3 autonomous driving in US

https://www.arenaev.com/mercedesbenz_is_first_to_get_approval_for_level_3_autonomous_driving_in_us-news-1267.php

by malshe • 4 years ago

81 52 4 years ago

arenaev.com

treis• 4 years ago

First car manufacturer. Waymo, Cruise, and probably others have had this for years.

cogman103• 4 years ago

And what they are approved for is, frankly, pretty lame. It's lane keeping in stop and go traffic (under 40mph).

Essentially, Tesla's EAP.

Waymo is WAY beyond this, as is cruise.

gerad• 4 years ago

Honestly, I think this is pretty amazing. Stop and go traffic is the most annoying part of driving to me. Level 2 isn’t helpful as you need to pay constant attention with your foot over the brake in case the autopilot does something stupid.

I don’t know why more manufacturers don’t focus on this.

BoorishBears2• 4 years ago

Just posted and already people who don't really understand AVs are comparing Apples to Oranges (this to Waymo/Cruise) and Oranges to plastic Oranges meant for a doll house (Tesla)

Waymo, Cruise and co are working with sensor stacks worth more than these vehicles with the idea that their vehicles will first be used for ridesharing. That already precludes most comparisons: it's a completely different model with completely different challenges.

Meanwhile Tesla does not have a single product that allows you to do other things without liability. Their product is downright primitive compared to what Mercedes is shipping with this.

When a Tesla murdered a man by slamming him into a highway barrier, the fact his phone had run Candy Crush at some point during the drive was dragged out against him.

Maybe people are misunderstanding because Mercedes says you need to be awake and able to take over? They don't mean Tesla's joke steering jiggle to indicate you're watching the road: they literally mean you only need to be awake and able to take over in 10 seconds. Other than that you can be checking your email, playing Candy Crush, even whip out your laptop and code.

This is the first time you can legally use your time in traffic for something other than driving. If 30 minutes of your 60 minute commute are in rush hour traffic, you can now spend 30 minutes doing something else.

(Also for those who won't read the article, Mercedes has a separate lane keeping product that activates above 40 mph, the distinction is that below 40 mph, Mercedes is taking full responsibility of the vehicle's actions and letting you take your eyes off the road)

snotrockets• 4 years ago

Tesla requires the driver’s full attention. Mercedes do not.

timeon3• 4 years ago

Essentially, Tesla's EAP

Tesla has no Level 3.

vsskanth• 4 years ago

Full autonomy is different from level 3. Also it's important to note that they assume liability when L3 is in use.

https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/mercedes-benz-takes-....

amacneil• 4 years ago

Waymo and Cruise have level 4, but in tightly geofenced areas.

Tesla have no geofence, but only level 2 (requires constant supervision).

Which makes this is an impressive achievement! I believe it's the first level 3 system that you can purchase outright and not limited to specific cities.

https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

tpmx• 4 years ago

Yeah, I thought people here would celebrate something actually shipping, but instead there's so much moaning about this and that. Nationalism at its worst, IMHO.

numpad0• 4 years ago

level 4, but in tightly geofenced areas. Tesla have no geofence

Can we get past this? Practically none of SDCs rely on geofence, not like precomputed routes and paths are necessary. Those are just for safety and for managing complexity for experiments.

It’s like trying to ridicule someone in a yellow vest for having to mind safety. Just pathetic.

akmarinov2• 4 years ago

Great, where can I buy a Waymo car?

sabertoothed• 4 years ago

These levels mostly refer to liability, not to capability.

EDIT: What I meant is that it is not a reliable indicator for identifying technology leaders.

btbuilder• 4 years ago

Putting money where their mouths are.

wefarrell• 4 years ago

They refer to capability in the legal sense and frankly that's all that matters.

dhaavi• 4 years ago

This is about (re)liability, rather than features.

Meaning, this is the first stock car you can actually buy where you do not need to hold the wheel anymore when it is self-driving.

MBCook3• 4 years ago

Ford’s BlueCruise and Cadillac’s SuperCruise don’t require hands on the wheel.

The difference, as I understood it, was in this system the driver’s full attention isn’t needed, unlike the systems above.

kube-system2• 4 years ago

This is the best explanation:

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images...

gambiting4• 4 years ago

Mercedes explicitly accepts liability while their system is in control, while Ford and Cadillac don't. They say you don't have to hold the wheel, but you are still liable for anything that happens.

affgrff2• 4 years ago

This. It is about the driver actually not being responsible for the system behavior when the car is driving itself. That means Mercedes-Benz bit of the long tails.

Dylan168072• 4 years ago

Are you suggesting that this system is equally likely to crash into a parked truck as a Tesla? If it is, it would be amazingly reckless to tell people they don't have to look at the road. And extremely bad PR.

And I'm not picking on Tesla in particular. There are lots of level 2 systems that don't reliably detect stationary objects. But nobody suggests relabeling them as level 3.

judge20203• 4 years ago

As stated in the article, this is only up to 40 MPH, however know that "level 3" doesn't always mean 40mph. Per SAE, the ODD (operational design domain) is entirely defined by the manufacturer of the car/autonomy system in use, so the next manufacturer might be able to introduce Level 3 up to 45mph or 55mph. The document[0] includes low speed traffic as an example of level 3 operation:

A Level 3 traffic jam feature performs the complete DDT on a fully access-controlled freeway in dense traffic, but requires a human driver to operate the vehicle upon ODD exit (e.g., when traffic clears, as well as before entering the congested freeway, and again upon exiting it).

0: https://www.sae.org/standards/content/j3016_202104/

readthenotes1• 4 years ago

brilliant choice. many people would pay a lot to get back the 2 or 3 hours stuck in rush hour.

TechnicolorByte• 4 years ago

Is this using Nvidia’s tech or MB’s own HW/SW?

charcircuit2• 4 years ago

However, it's worth noting that the Mercedes Drive Pilot technology is only functional at speeds of up to 40 mph (64 km/h)

This seams backwards. In my experience the faster you are able to drive the easier it is to drive. Places with a small speed limit in the middle of town are much more complex to drive through compared to country roads where you just go straight.

newaccount742• 4 years ago

Drive Pilot is limited to divided highways. It's designed for rush hour traffic.

netrus• 4 years ago

That is true, but accidents at higher speed are more destructive/expensive. Mercedes can afford to pay for many dented cars, but at higher speeds (more) people die.

akmarinov2• 4 years ago

Mercedes already does 130 km/h in Europe, it'll come to US at some point as well

baby• 4 years ago

There is nothing impressive about that guys. Traditional manufacturers are really lagging behind.

voz_2• 4 years ago

Don't shit on the accomplishments of others. What do you possibly know about self driving?

timeon3• 4 years ago

Who is lagging here is Tesla.

gambiting4• 4 years ago

Mercedes is the first company with enough confidence in their system that they accept legal liability while their system is in operation - that's not impressive???? Literally no one else is doing this.

petilon• 4 years ago

It should be noted that Mercedes accepts liability for accidents involving their self-driving cars [1]. This is a very different approach from Tesla [2]. Tesla's irresponsible approach is impacting other more responsible companies because it is lowering consumer confidence in self-driving cars.

[1] https://www.kbb.com/car-news/mercedes-well-be-liable-for-sel...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/magazine/tesla-autopilot-...

Excerpt from [2]:

"The Autopilot kept Riad’s Tesla at a steady speed as it approached the stoplight that marked the end of the freeway and the beginning of Artesia Boulevard. According to a witness, the light was red, but the car drove straight through the intersection, striking a Honda Civic. Riad had only minor injuries, but the two people in the Civic, Gilberto Alcazar Lopez and Maria Guadalupe Nieves, died at the scene. Their families said that they were on a first date."

judge20203• 4 years ago

Excerpt from [1]:

There are few federal laws addressing automated driving. So, Mercedes Vice President of Automated Driving George Massing tells R&T, “we will probably have to deal with each individual state.” But the company plans to accept legal liability for what the car does while Drive Pilot is engaged.

Uh.. is there any actual documentation about them taking liability? Some headlines are fine but not a webpage for submitting a claim or a legal document you can show to a court for why you'd like to introduce Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC as a party to a liability case.

spoils19• 4 years ago

Does anyone else feel like Tesla could have had it first, but Mercedes-Benz decided to pay off the US instead as it's now popular to hate Elon?

kube-system2• 4 years ago

Tesla would have to remove features to meet the reliability bar for level 3. And they won’t ever do that, because their marketing angle is entirely reliant on equating “features” with “capability”.

The fact of the matter is that the gee-whiz factor of seeing their cars navigate intersections is greater than the gee-whiz factor of lacking a notification that you must monitor the cars actions.

charcircuit2• 4 years ago

You can keep the features and just gracefully downgrade to level 2 when necessary.

timeon3• 4 years ago

Tesla is not reliable.

gambiting4• 4 years ago

> decided to pay off the US

What does that even mean? How do you "pay off the US"? The congress? The President? The regulatory agencies? Also, isn't Elon the wealthiest man on the planet? If the issue was simply about "paying off" someone, surely Elon could have already done it ages ago?

Or maybe Deimler is a serious corporation that actually knows what they are doing, and through rigorous engineering they know they can accept legal liability for their system, where other companies will not.

voz_2• 4 years ago

Very cool. This is the kind of progress I would expect here. Big players like Toyota, Mercedes, Ford, are going to take longer to get going, but when they do, they will have the execution and scale to do it far better than most tech companies. The initial tech hurdle is massive, but the space is won on logistics and consistency once the tech is solved.

merricksb• 4 years ago

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34334925

judge20203• 4 years ago

Not sure why this is a dupe, though. That submission is 10 days old and doesn't seem to have been given a second chance on the front page. @dang

dang• 4 years ago

That post spent 7 hours on the front page so this is definitely a dupe.

mensetmanusman• 4 years ago

“ As some of you may have heard, Mercedes-Benz has been granted regulatory approval to begin testing its Level 3 autonomous driving technology on Nevada roads.”

The first sentence seems to contradict the headline. Approval to begin testing is not approval across the board.

Mercedes-Benz is first to get approval for Level 3 autonomous driving in US

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