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Mercedes-Benz wins approval for Level 3 autonomous driving on the Autobahn
- superkuh 5y agoThe autobahn is a good, easy testing ground for cars. Almost on par with, say, Arizona. The real difficulty is little town streets in winter with snow.
- MisterSandman 5y agoAnd India. Nobody has even thought of tackling third-world-country roads, and with the slow and city-specific progress that is being made, I think there will be a huge gap in self-driving capabilities between countries, akin to the huge internet divide in the 80s/90s.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoOr Egypt, not too long ago, I read there was only a literal handful of traffic lights in the whole country.
- nicbou 5y agoYou don't even need to go that far. Starting from Germany, driving becomes more and more chaotic as you approach Turkey, and only get worse from there. Same as you head towards Sicily. I wouldn't trust a self-driving car in those environments.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago37mph seems low, I had assumed autobahn was highways
- hestefisk 5y agoIt is.
- webkike 5y agoIt is, the minimum allowed speed of which is 37 mph
- namibj 5y agoNote quite, rather, if your vehicle can't reliably sustain that, you aren't allowed on the Autobahn. There is no minimum allowed speed as-such, though there might be problems if you drive slower than that for no reason.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago37 mph = 60 km/h
- MBCook 5y agoI saw this news somewhere else, in a much better article which I’m having trouble finding in my browser history. The purpose of the system is basically to take over in bad traffic, doing everything for you, until things are good enough to drive again yourself. This makes a certain amount of sense. Obviously the slower the car goes the more time it has to react to situations. It will also cause less damage if it makes a mistake. Driving on the highway isn’t bad at all, especially with radar cruise control. I think I would rather have a system capable of handling bad traffic for me totally.
- zinekeller 5y agoJust a tangent: why do a transport-related website list this in mph? It should be km/h before mph in this instance because it's the native speed measurement in the Autobahn.
- MBCook 5y agoKnowing nothing about the site I would assume they target an American (or British?) audience.
- Glawen 5y agoIt seems to be a new trend where people think that translating to English means using imperial. This is the same thing in YouTube video, they feel compelled to use inch, lbs and whatever unknown measure
- blackoil 5y agoDriving in traffic jam takes a lot more physical and mental toll than in a smooth running traffic.
- stubish 5y agoSeems best to start low until the system proves itself. At 60 km/h on the Autobahn, the minimum speed, you don't need a system that can overtake or even switch lanes.
- Matthias247 5y agoYou don’t need it. But you will be overtaken - by everything including the heaviest trucks. 60 is not a safe speed to drive on the Autobahn. It forces others to overtake and take the left/middle lane, which can impact vehicles there driving at much higher speed. But I think driving 60 on the right lane is also not the scope of the system - it’s about handling traffic jams.
- Phenomenit 5y agohalf of all the driving I did on the autobahn on my way to France this summer was crawling slowly through trafficjams so it makes sense. Also who would want to let a autopilot do +100k h while manual drivers whizz by at double that speed?
- kart23 5y agoImpressive if it actually ships. Level 3 is really where things start to get real in terms of liability for the manufacturer.
- KennyBlanken 5y agoNot really sure that should be a metric, given that Tesla Autopilot (which shipped, what, a decade ago?) still likes to ram into the back of parked emergency vehicles (a problem they have "acknowledged") and randomly brake heavily (a problem they haven't, but just hit up youtube and you can find dozens of examples of it doing it to varying degrees of severity.)
- adrr 5y agoTesla is level 2
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MBCook 5y agoYes, but Tesla uses the excuse that the driver is supposed to be paying attention at all times because it’s only a “driver assistance” system. (Not that the name would ever imply something else. No.) But once you’ve explicitly told the driver they don’t have to pay attention, you don’t have that excuse anymore.
- onethought 5y agoPilots treat autopilot as an assistance system… so it seems apt.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- detaro 5y agoThat's the point of parents comment: Tesla (and every other assist) is Level 2, and thus can always blame the driver for not paying attention and doesn't take responsibility in the same way a Level 3 product has to, which explicitly tells users they don't have to focus on driving but can do other things.
- nexuist 5y ago> The automaker got the green light to sell its Drive Pilot package for use on stretches of the country’s Autobahn network at a speed of up to 37 miles per hour, Mercedes said Dec. 9. Kind of stupid that this headline implies Mercedes is beating Tesla when Autopilot obviously supports speeds above 37mph. It would be like if a car manufacturer offered a package called "Full Self Driving" that wasn't actually level 5 self driving.
- MBCook 5y agoDoes autopilot support driving without the driver paying any attention at all? That’s what Mercedes system can do.
- noja 5y agoYeah, at up to 37 mph.
- chrinic4948 5y agoNope. Even at 10 mph / 16 kph, Tesla requires the driver to pay attention. Tesla forces drivers to apply resistance to the steering wheel and the interior cabin camera (and cabin infrared camera starting 2022) will ensure the driver is looking up.
- Aeolun 5y ago> It would be like if a car manufacturer offered a package called "Full Self Driving" that wasn't actually level 5 self driving. You mean like something called ‘autopilot’ when you still have to pay attention all the time?
- justapassenger 5y agoYou’re comparing apples to oranges. Level 2 and 3 have enormous gaps in terms of how you design, what are your failures modes, liability, redundancy, etc, etc. Comparing autopilot to level 3 system is like saying that fly is more advanced organism than a dog, because it can fly.
- valine 5y agoThese L3 driving systems are largely a gimmick with fewer capabilities than even Tesla autopilot. I’d rather have a L2 system that can takes turns / follow navigation than an L3 system that only does the most basic highway driving.
- davewritescode 5y agoThis is a comprehensive multi-sensor system that should have much better capabilities than anything Tesla has. I think it was a big mistake that Tesla has given up on sensor fusion.
- bpodgursky 5y agoThere is absolutely no way this has better capabilities than Tesla. It may indeed have more sensors, but that doesn't mean it's more sophisticated.
- freeflight 5y ago> There is absolutely no way this has better capabilities than Tesla. Why would there be absolutely no way? People keep forgetting that Tesla is actually a small newcomer in the automotive sector. They were ahead of the peak because established automotive companies slept on the market, but that does not mean these behemoths just gonna keep sleeping on it and leave it to Tesla without even trying to compete. Expect to see more of this happening over the next decade, these companies might be slow to adapt, but once they get momentum behind their mass it will be very difficult for Tesla to keep up with them.
- arlcode 5y agoThat might be true, but as opposed to Tesla, Mercedes is willing to take on the liability if something happens while the system is online. If I'm not mistaken the law requires a 10 second take over period before it disengages. For the moment Tesla can't or won't do the same. Not in Germany, Not in America. Nowhere. In the end we will see who is better (it might be Tesla, or another company, or all of them in close succession). But right now Tesla is saying and implying a lot of things but still requires the driver to be in full control at any moment (wink-wink nudge-nudge), while Mercedes decided that there are situation where they got this.
- blamazon 5y ago>“Drive Pilot enables the driver to turn away from the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities,” the luxury carmaker said in a statement. “For example, to communicate with colleagues via the in-car office, to write emails, to surf the internet or to relax and watch a film.” Does this phrasing seem unusual for others? It made me look to see if this was a satirical news site.
- bradfitz 5y agoMaybe it sounded reasonable in the original German.
- Aeolun 5y agoDidn’t sound weird to me. Just made me feel that they must be really confident in their system.
- aflag 5y agoBecause for you, everything that’s not driving is a secondary activity?
- Aeolun 5y agoI certainly hope that’s true for anyone that gets in a car. I’m not quite sure how it’s related though?
- aflag 5y agoBecause they are not really secondary activities for driving itself, it sounds like they are secondary in a broader context. A secondary activity for driving is, perhaps turning on the the wipers or something like that. But doing office work is a different activity, not a secondary one. That’s how it sounded like to me, at least.
- Aeolun 5y agoAh, I see where you are coming from. Yeah, I’d read ‘secondary activities’ more as in ‘not related to driving’, activities. When you start reading your email it’s probably a bit unreasonable to call that anything other than your primary activity.
- stadium 5y agoI like driving. I see more value in an idle car autonomously driven to my doorstep for me to drive, than for an autonomous car to drive me. What's the risk profile of an empty autonomous car driving 20 mph on local roads to my doorstep, vs a fully autonomous vehicle?
- yomama99 5y agoNuro has a similar mentality, but applied to unmanned deliveries.
- speedgoose 5y agoSlow moving traffic on highway is not very fun though. I prefer my car to manage that for me.
- themodelplumber 5y agoI wonder if your insurance company will feel the same about your enjoyment, once the technology threshold is crossed well enough and they realize that automated driving is the new rail. Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself? I think this will eventually be a question that fails over into economics while people are arguing about it. Insurers will be in a good place to influence the future of automated driving. Humans as a group can't even not drive drunk, still. Individuals are not predictable either. Our taste for control will have to be worked around. (Hopefully in ways that allow us more time to...for example drive in VR, on a better course, with an even more stimulating feeling of presence, while we are driven around...)
- postingawayonhn 5y ago> Or, would you be willing to pay higher premiums or even extra tolls and taxes in order to drive yourself? Most people are willing to pay for things they enjoy. It's also possible that a human driven car could use its autonomous driving system as a safety system to intervene if it anticipates a crash.
- eptcyka 5y ago
- paxys 5y agoSeems like they are laser focused on the "stuck in traffic on the highway while on the way to work" scenario for automation, which is pretty clever. Focus on one use case and do it well. Heck people generally enjoy driving when the road is empty, especially on the Autobahn.
- Eji1700 5y agoIt's also the easiest solution and probably the only viable one right now. The difficulty jump from "Mostly straight line highway driving" to "good fucking luck city streets" is extreme
- egeozcan 5y agoIn city streets, the car sometimes fails to correctly detect the speed limit, let alone driving autonomously. Also the Germans apparently love making the rules in every junction different, and while most people are capable of intense street-sign following (I feel like a robot when driving, yeah the irony is not lost on me), I doubt a computer can do that too, especially when every mistake has a bigger chance to end up with an accident, compared to (I imagine) anywhere else in the world, because a typical driver here doesn't want to calculate the risk of another failing to follow the rules correctly. Look at driving fail videos from Germany and the ones from Russia and the USA, you'll regularly see something they show as "huge mistake OMG" in Germany being unremarkable (if not business as usual) when compared to others.
- mrtksn 5y agoActually, the speed limits are not imposed randomly and you can usually "sense" the limit from the surroundings and the structure of the road. I don't really look at speed limits when driving, if I'm on a road that looks like a pedestrian can walk then I probably need to go slow and if there's a school ahead or the street is particularly narrow or the road pavement is not asphalt I probably need to go extremely slow. TBF, now I'm not in Germany but when I was, driving on the autobahn usually involved religiously following the signs of speed limit and no speed limit(the limit-free coverage on the autobahn is patchy). I wonder if the self driving systems asses the road type to determine the speed they should go. Is there a possibility for a autonomous car to speed up to 120kph around a school or in a residential area if the sign is missing or someone puts a bogus sign?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 01acheru 5y agoThere is one thing I will never understand, why do a lot of people talk about speed limits as the speed you need to be driving? It’s the maximum speed you can reach before being fined, it doesn’t mean “oh man I’m driving at 90km/h and the limit is 100, that’s so wrong”. Some roads (at least here in Italy) also have a minimum speed requirement when there is no traffic, which goes higher the more you go to the left lanes, but that’s another story. Anyway I think that reading speed limits from road signs is quite stupid and frankly useless, most of the time the speed you need to be driving is contextual and the same applies to a lot of other dynamics of driving. Well done Mercedes, one step at a time raising the bar once you manage to do “simple” things right.
- rconti 5y agoIt's because they're too low, that's why. People are driving contextually, it's the limits that are not keeping up. They're not blindly targeting the "speed limit" and throwing all caution to the wind. (of course, they're ALSO often throwing all caution to the wind, but that's another story).
- NullPrefix 5y agoIn some countries you're supposed to drive at close to speed limit. If the speed limit is 90, you're supposed to go at least 70. Main reason why horse carriages and bicycles aren't allowed on highways. Go way slower than the traffic flow and you're impeding traffic which is detrimental to traffic safety.
- NullPrefix 5y agoIn other jurisdictions, where it's not illegal, it's at least a reason enough for cops to pull you over, claiming "suspicious driving"
- emteycz 5y agoI failed driving school final test because I was too slow (not even on a highway)
- 5y ago
- perlgeek 5y agoI'm currently driving a pretty new Mercedes (company car), and its lane assistant regularly tries to kill me in construction areas because it wants me to follow the regular, currently inactive lane markings. It's gotten so bad that I'm switching off the lane assistant when I'm approaching construction areas. I've talked to a guy at the car dealership, and he said "my mother complains about the same thing, it's a known issue". I really, really hope they've managed to fix that for the autonomous driving models, or at least auto-disengage before construction areas. (And if they fixed it, can I get a software update please?)
- theta_d 5y agoMy 2021 Honda Accord does the same. Also turned it off.
- LightG 5y agoAnd ... this is why I've always said it's either all or nothing and why FSD and similar are pointless until in, who knows, 10 years time(if that) it becomes ready for prime time. Sure, youtubers can video it for fun and drink the kool aid but actual drivers will just turn it off after a hairy situation. Well, I will anyway. Maybe this is why Tesla are touting their ridiculous robot ... it's a potential pivot or alternative use of the (no doubt) impressive AI tech behind FSD which, they've now realised, will take much longer to be properly driver ready. Maybe FSD's fate is similar to the space program. The eventual secondary technology it spawns is more useful than its original purpose. Because I won't be going near these autonomous driving solutions for many years. Yeah, give me a Dalek-style home robot instead for now.
- ajross 5y agoAs far as I can tell, this Drive Pilot thing is precisely the existing lane assist product. What's changed is that they've heavily constrained it so that it disengages if you go over 60 kph, or outside the hand-maintained list of blessed areas. Presumably they feel they can detect and disallow construction areas and other complexities fast enough to avoid accidents. Which is to say... this is mostly a stunt. Teslas are literally driving people around now[1], and the rest of the industry feels they need to do something. Announcing a "SAE Level 3" product, no matter how constrained, at least gets them marketing hits like this that look like an advantage. [1] No joke: mine takes my kids to and from school reliably. FSD beta isn't finished, but it's really, really good. There remain some path planning and confidence glitches that force me to disengage every dozen miles or so, but in 500 miles since I got it I've yet to see the car attempt anything genuinely unsafe. Mostly it just annoys other drivers by refusing to enter traffic.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- vanusa 5y ago“Drive Pilot enables the driver to turn away from the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities,” the luxury carmaker said in a statement. “For example, to communicate with colleagues via the in-car office, to write emails, to surf the internet or to relax and watch a film.” This can't possibly be a good thing. Nevermind if it works as advertised or not -- just from the very definition of what's claiming to do. I know it certainly sounds like a good thing -- it will relieve the stress and fatigue of these slow-moving situations, leading to better reaction times, etc. But just think about for a second. When you're at the wheel, the most you should be doing on the side is talking to people, and occasionally checking your GIS. You just should not be engaged in other attention-demanding activities like reading emails, surfing the internet, or watching movies. Period. What's going to happen is: someone's leg's are gonna get crushed, because (foolishly or not) they walked between cars in a slow-moving traffic situation (like they always do). Because, you know, a human driver would have seen them. And then the same debates will start up all over again, completely missing the point. It's not the overall statistics of this happening, or that the driver didn't respond to the flashing red light that must have gone off in time (because they were zoned out, of course). It's that they're pushing this inherently risky technology out there (which by definition cannot be fully validated until subjected to extensive real-life conditions), not to save us from drivers who are temporarily incapacitated at the wheel, not to warn us from approaching objects we might miss ... but to let us watch Netflix while driving.
- ashtonkem 5y agoDefinitionally, L3 is not ready for the human to stop paying attention. I would argue that you need at least L4 automation before you can explicitly advise users that they can do distracting things in the car, and even then only in good weather and on specific roads (e.g. highways).
- ctdonath 5y agoAutomated driving is safer. Offering to let you watch a movie is a way to get you to not drive for two hours.
- jgilias 5y agoI may be wrong, but I think it's not legal to be walking on an Autobahn, irrespective of how slow the traffic moves.