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.
> 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.
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’.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
>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.
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:
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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."
[+] [-] avar|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tablespoon|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jameshart|4 years ago|reply
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’.
[+] [-] mrighele|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mannykannot|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] lamontcg|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hristov|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jonfw|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] bko|4 years ago|reply
> 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
[+] [-] linspace|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] littlestymaar|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] SimonPStevens|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] raxxorrax|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hammock|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] nemetroid|4 years ago|reply
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"
[+] [-] huhtenberg|4 years ago|reply
Not wanting to crash into random things when rolling at 120 km/h is not "risk aversion". It's just common sense.
[+] [-] traceroute66|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dangerface|4 years ago|reply
You will own nothing and like it.
[+] [-] HWR_14|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] 14|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mempko|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sixQuarks|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] bodhi_mind|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|4 years ago|reply
I don't think legislators will ever accept the safer criminal activity argument.
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adfgadfgaery|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] AniseAbyss|4 years ago|reply
German cars are designed for cities American cars are designed for LA.
[+] [-] slg|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ralmidani|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] _ph_|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] j1elo|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] rsynnott|4 years ago|reply
I think it's just bad editing.
[+] [-] estaseuropano|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markn951|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] michelb|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 35mm|4 years ago|reply
It’s still my problem if I’m inside the car whilst it crashes.
[+] [-] marban|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buro9|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] hutzlibu|4 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] PostOnce|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] EdwardDiego|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kevincox|4 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] MichaelRazum|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] victorp13|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwerty456127|4 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] steeve|4 years ago|reply
Bold move.
[+] [-] bjarneh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rkagerer|4 years ago|reply
...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.
[+] [-] dusted|4 years ago|reply
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."