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>Handing over driving responsibility completely requires extremely particular circumstances. Right now, Drive Pilot can only engage at speeds under 40 mph (60 k

• batiudrami 5y 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?
  • Traster 5y 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.
    • judge2020 5y ago
      But this is quite a bad product in that respect. If this is all it takes, Tesla would implement the same restrictions and get the same fanfare, but alas they're not constantly aiming for "PR stunt" levels of driving.
      • delecti 5y ago
        You're saying that Tesla of all companies isn't aiming for PR stunts with their automated driving? Tesla, the company that calls their level 2 automation "Full Self Driving" isn't out for PR stunts? I would be hard-pressed to name many companies that seem more prone to PR stunts than Tesla.
  • hef19898 5y 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.
  • slg 5y 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.
    • blackoil 5y ago
      This will be treated same as drunk driving. Just because you want to take responsibility doesn't/shouldn't mean anything to legal framework.
      • slg 5y ago
        I'm not sure that I understand your point. Which party takes responsibility for an accident says nothing about the frequency of accidents or the kind of threat this car would pose to other drivers.
        • tsimionescu 5y ago
          Of course it does (indirectly). Tesla for example can't take responsibility, since they know that their "full self drive" or "autopilot" systems are never reliable, in any driving circumstance. What you're saying is like "the engineers that built this bridge never drive over it, but that doesn't mean it's shoddy" - technically correct, but almost certainly wrong in practice.
          • slg 5y ago
            You are assuming the motivations behind these decisions are purely based on safety rather than a philosphical difference in approaches. From a practical standpoint, liability needs to be all or nothing. You can't have a driver worrying about whether they are going 40mph or 41mph. You can't immedaitely give the driver liability if it starts to drizzle or the sun sets. Mercedes is taking the approach that they are always responsibile. Other manufacturers are taking the approach that the driver is always responsible. The end result is that the Mercedes system is much more conservative in how it can be used. This says nothing about the quality of their technology in comparison to their competitors. It simply says they are focusing on the easiest problems first while their competitors are taking a more holistic approach trying to design a system that has more broad usability.
  • fastball 5y ago
    It doesn't say anything really. This only speaks to Mercedes and the performance of their driverless tech.
  • spullara 5y ago
    This is insurance. It is all probability.
    • belter 5y ago
      More Actuarial Science but your point still stands.
• arlcode 5y 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.
  • hardtke 5y 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.
  • jstummbillig 5y 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.
    • PinguTS 5y ago
      Insurance doesn't cover brand image, which is very important for Mercedes.
    • arlcode 5y ago
      Absolutely. Regulators also love b) and now that there is precedence we should see the next step by some of the a) companies. If their product is better they should be able to easily match or exceed Mercedes (and I think they will. Either voluntarily or by law). To me this is a really exciting step along the way to autonomous vehicles.
• mywacaday 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y 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 5y ago
  I'd bet anything the restrictions are for insurance reasons otherwise the premiums would be too high
  • kube-system 5y 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_ 5y 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 5y ago
    Not unheard of on German roads.
• DrBazza 5y 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.
• antattack 5y 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 5y ago
    They give you a 10 second window from telling you to take over control that they will still be liable for any issues.
    • antattack 5y ago
      I saw the mention of 10 seconds reaction window but I don't think that's universal. As in my example, if there's an orange light blinking ahead and car is driving 60km/h it's impossible for the car to give the driver 10 seconds to take over.
• nabla9 5y ago
  Unlike Tesla, you can rely on it in those circumstances. In Tesla you have to have hands on wheel all the time.
• bitL 5y 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?
  • detaro 5y 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.
• freeflight 5y 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-system 5y 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.