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Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

254 points by mxschumacher 4y ago

piotr_slava 4y ago
European Exceptionalism, ladies and gentlemen. The real engineering, no fluff.
pojzon 4y ago
If tesla still has issues with self-driving cars and they are like a decade if not more ahead of everyone else. I dont believe this PR stunt.
- qeternity 4y ago
  Wow. Or Tesla are the real masters of the PR stunt, and are not a decade ahead of everyone. EDIT I watched this comment drop from 15 pts to 5 pts. The Elon apologists are out in full force.
  - Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
    I believe that Tesla is ahead in the self-driving industry from an overall technology perspective. What they have failed to do, however, is to tackle the problem of when and how much the user can actually trust their system. This leaves users to struggle to build their own mental models of the same ("Oh, it likes this road", "I don't trust it at high speeds", etc.) This is terrible UX. Mercedes seems to be stepping up to the plate to actually take a stab at this problem. Inevitably the answers to these questions are not super impressive compared to Tesla's 'hey, it might work in any situation, you never know' approach. But I suspect users will really like it, even though the underlying tech is likely far behind Tesla's.
    - qeternity 4y ago
      > I believe that Tesla is ahead in the self-driving industry from an overall technology perspective. What info could you possibly have access to that would give you remotely enough confidence to assess this? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying I doubt you have the info to claim this.
      - Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
        Reasonable. It's an 'I believe' claim based not an 'based on these facts' claim. But, I am more informed that most as I spent five years in the industry leading all algorithm/ML development for autonomous systems at Apple. (Who I am leaving out of this analysis BTW :)
        qeternity 4y ago
        So what are you believing if it’s not based on facts? Also you surely can understand that your work on AS at Apple has no bearing on what Tesla is doing, correct? Am I missing something here?
        pojzon 4y ago
        Self-driving car is not only radar and good model. Tesla has their own battery factories, own mines, own delivery chain, years of experience of actual real world traffic data from all around the world. You have to look at volume, Tesla soon will be producing millions of electric cars per year. They already won the market. It will take years for competition to catch up. If ppl want to gamble with their money and buy a car that never hit a real world traffic -> let them do it, but every other manufacturer is going to have to go through the same painful process as Tesla already did. Not even mentioning that no other company beside maybe Toyota has any real experience with electric cars.
        qeternity 4y ago
        What on earth does level 5 autonomy have to do with EVs? Literally nothing above has any relation to autonomy.
        pojzon 4y ago
        It means that competition has ALOT of things to focus on to even be on pair. Tesla on the other hand has to only focus on one thing now.. And none of those companies reached lv5. So my bet would be on company that has the best focus.
- wollsmoth 4y ago
  Maybe LIDAR is more useful than Tesla thought.
  - simondotau 4y ago
    What mistakes is FSD beta currently making that would be solved with more accurate localisation of the vehicle? Are you aware of any situations where mistakes are being made as a result of errors in depth estimation? Seriously, look at any FSD beta video and you’ll quickly recognise that its ability to sense the road is mature and robust; most errors are in the planner.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  > they are like a decade if not more ahead of everyone else. Mercedes has been investing radar since the Tesla Roadster. They are ahead of Tesla when for European regulation.
- martin8412 4y ago
  Tesla and Elon Musk are lying through their teeth every option they get. They can't even detect stationary emergency vehicles ffs.. Mercedes is accepting liability whenever their self driving system is engaged, meaning their insurance is on the hook. So I think they're pretty damn certain that it will work as intended.
  - 01100011 4y ago
    In my uninformed estimation, I think Elon, like a lot of us 7-8 years ago, saw the recent advances in deep learning and figured they'd be capable of anything in a few years. You just need to scale them up and train the shit out of them and out pops self driving. Some of us have since repented but Tesla made too many promises so they've got to keep pushing that narrative or they become just another car company.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
  or tesla made a bad engineering decision that stalled progress?
- chucknthem 4y ago
  Tesla owner here, have friends that work at Cruise. Tesla is waaayy behind cruise and waymo on the self driving front. Those other companies actually have fully driverless cars driving around San Francisco. Tesla is not even close. I think GM will have the best self driving system if they manage to commercialize the tech cruise built.
  - B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
    "If", as the Spartans famously said to Big Alex's dad. Ah, well, let's hope GM manages to comercialize the stuff. (The Spartans were undefeated, but became irrelevant and dwindled, just a past legend for others to wave around as political advertising. Sic transit ...)
- freeflight 4y ago
  > I dont believe this PR stunt. PR stunts usually don't come with official regulatory approval, tho they commonly come with grand promises [0] and the actual product not living up to them [1] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069 [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqevk/the-government-is-finally-catching-up-with-teslas-wild-autopilot-claims https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqevk/the-government-is-fin...
- myko 4y ago
  Tesla seems way behind companies like Waymo It's all marketing hype, I say this as a Model S owner with FSD
henrikschroder 4y ago
Meanwhile at Tesla: "We're the industry leaders, wait for us!"
- LightG 4y ago
  "Our leader of all things FSD is on sabbatical, please bare with us"
  - VirusNewbie 4y ago
    Karpathy doesn’t lead FSD.
    - LightG 4y ago
      "Director of AI at Tesla, leading the Autopilot Vision team" Whichever way you cut it, that's a pretty significant situation for FSD at this time. In my eyes, FSD is over, and has been for 2 years. They'll get to Lane Assist ^2 but that's it. None of the pretty youtube videos convince me, and there are just as many which are terrible.
- 01100011 4y ago
  Hey, they've had self driving ready to go next year since 2014(https://youtu.be/o7oZ-AQszEI https://youtu.be/o7oZ-AQszEI). Why so cynical? :)
  - judge2020 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856861 The claims up until 2018 were met. 2018 is when Tesla got the hang of Model 3 production, so their value now had to come from promises like FSD beta.
    - I_DRINK_KOOLAID 4y ago
      > 2018 The Saudis should have had come through. In a rare moment of clarity Musk self-diagnosed and understood that he can't be trusted with a public company. He takes the stock price (and generally everything that impacts or perceived as impacting the stock price) too personally. His best work was when he was at the helm of a private company out of the public eye. Unfortunately I think he became addicted to attention and can't go back. All the former members of the PayPal mafia became addicted to being high ranked generals in the culture and political wars raging in across the country.
wyldfire 4y ago
> Mercedes-Benz Cars says it plans to release “Drive Pilot,” a conditionally automated Level 3 system for automated driving I think it's pretty irresponsible to publish a picture of a driver taking his eyes off the road to play Tetris on a system designed for Level 3.
- MBCook 4y ago
  “Level 3 autonomous driving, as defined by SAE International, means that the driver can hand over control to the vehicle, but must be ready to take over when prompted” (from an EU car site) At level 3 the driver no longer has to constantly monitor the road, but they can’t exactly go to sleep because they need to be ready to take over in a few seconds. Given that the image seems reasonable.
  - microtherion 4y ago
    In the specific case of the Mercedes-Benz system, if the driver does not take over in a timely manner, the car will find a safe place to come to a stop, activate the emergency lights, and unlock the doors, so you'd probably live even if you did fall asleep: https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2019-02-20-vssa-mercedes-benz-drive-pilot-a.pdf https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2...
- SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
  Not if the system is designed to achieve a minimal risk condition by itself or give the driver sufficient warning to take over. Level 3 includes systems that can handle an emergency situation but require the driver to respond within some limited time.
- freeflight 4y ago
  That's pretty much the definition of level 3; > In certain situations, the driver can turn attention away from the road, but most always be ready to take full control again. https://www.blickfeld.com/blog/levels-of-autonomous-driving/ https://www.blickfeld.com/blog/levels-of-autonomous-driving/
- 4y ago
gitfan86 4y ago
"it's geofenced to certain roads, and only work under 40mph", " you should not use this in the rain" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMNnOosjrBo&ab_channel=Engadget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMNnOosjrBo&ab_channel=Engad...
- verisimi 4y ago
  > "Geofenced" That's the word. That's the plan. We will be geofenced, there will be a kill switch. You will not be able to go where you want, except if the government allows it. In fact, I think Uber is the best example of geofencing we have for the long run. In the medium term, self-driving cars you still own will fill the gap.
  - QuercusMax 4y ago
    You're making a pretty big leap there from "our experimental self-driving mode only works inside the geofence" to "the government won't let you drive where you want".
    - verisimi 4y ago
      Yes, a huge leap. I can't possibly imagine that government would pass legislation that all the automakers would comply with. /s https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/biden-infrastructure-bill-vehicle-kill-switch-2026/ https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/biden-infrastructure-bil... "Deep within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law by President Joe Biden is a passage that will require automakers to begin including what can be best summarized as a “vehicle kill switch” within the operating software of new cars, which is described in the bill as “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology”. The measure has been positioned as a safety tool to help prevent drunk driving, and by 2026 (three years after the enactment of the Act, per the text) the kill switch could be mandated on every new car sold in the United States. Then there’s the broader reaching RIDE Act, which we’ll touch on in a moment."
      - verisimi 4y ago
halotrope 4y ago
Meanwhile in Jerusalem https://youtu.be/pDyMzz8HMIc https://youtu.be/pDyMzz8HMIc
- runetech 4y ago
  Wow. That was pretty convincing. Thanks for sharing.
  - halotrope 4y ago
    Agreed. It should be kept in mind that Mobileye solution has not really seen a wide rollout and scrutiny yet. One can be optimistic considering that the CEO Amnon Shashua is known for a very careful and responsible conduct compared to e.g Tesla. This apparently let to them having a falling out because Tesla overpromised on the old stack selling it as “Autopilot” when it was L2 at best. Which resulted in them doing FSD from scratch after Mobileye cancelled the collaboration after a deathly accident. At least this seems to be the semi-official account of things.
    - fastball 4y ago
      The levelling system in self-driving really needs to die. If Autopilot is L2 at best how is the OC L3? What features does the Mercedes Drive Pilot solution have that AP does not?
      - upbeat_general 4y ago
        LiDAR for one: current SOTA monocular depth estimation is pretty poor compared to even poor LiDAR
        fastball 4y ago
        That's a sensor not a feature.
- sebmellen 4y ago
  אני משוכנע
verisimi 4y ago
everyone 4y ago
Is it still designed to mow down pedestrians? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15344706/self-driving-mercedes-will-prioritize-occupant-safety-over-pedestrians/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15344706/self-driving-mer... Mercedes ethics: Save the people who can afford lawyers.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  That's such a ridiculous problem to worry about. Humans don't try to solve the trolley problem, either, I don't know why we suddenly expect computers to be able to do it. The real answer is actually simple, and it's basically the same advice for human drivers: stop the car, however you can. Don't try to swerve, don't get clever, just dynamite the brakes and hope for the best. Or as they say on the race track "both pedals in!" Anything else is foolishness. I think magazines just like to talk about it because it makes people click.
  - everyone 4y ago
    Your argument works both ways. Lets say a truck is driving on the wrong side of the road and is going to flatten the mercedes (not too uncommon as truck drivers seem to be crazy and will overtake each other). Lets say it's possible to swerve onto the footpath and squash some pedestrians in order to avoid the truck. A human driver wont be solving the trolley problem here and will probably just die. It sounds Mercedes goal is for the car to save the driver and kill the pedestrians in this situation.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Read what the Mercedes guy actually said, though. Swerving is bad, because it in no way guarantees a better result, and increases the risk substantially of making things worse. Any tire grip you use to swerve isn't being used to stop, and the best way to minimize damage to the car, and by extension risk to the occupant, is to get kinetic energy as low as possible and rely on the safety cage for the rest. The magazine writer frames it as "Mercedes is making a choice in the trolley problem, and that choice is the driver" as if that's actually a decision being made, instead of the entirely expected result of trying to slow the car enough that regular safety systems are likely to save the life of the driver. Mercedes is doing the opposite of trying to solve the trolley problem, they're declaring it pointless to try. It's much more plausible to get the car into the "driver is very unlikely to die" kinetic range than it is to get it down to "pedestrian is very unlikely to die." So, back to your hypothetical -- the Mercedes won't be swerving for the pedestrians, because that'll statistically increase the risk to the driver. The car may very well still get hit by that truck, but now it'll be on the driver side instead of the front crumple zone. And who knows what else happens after the car becomes ballistic because it collided with something.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Is there a map somewhere that discloses which roads it will be permitted on?
mdoms 4y ago
[flagged]
- scrozier 4y ago
  I own a Model 3 and love it. But you're 100% right: the "full self driving" claim Musk/Tesla has been making for years is bizarre. I live in a major city and have never had a trip using FSD where I didn't have to take control multiple times. At times, updates seem to make it get worse. Simple example, on a highway, it can't even keep the car in the middle of the lane through moderate curves. It almost always drifts to the outside, sometimes onto or over the lane marker. And I know it's doing this because I can watch it on the display, so the car clearly knows it's not centered. Surely this should be a trivial task (as self-driving tasks go).
  - judge2020 4y ago
    > using FSD Unless you mean FSD Beta, Autopilot is just lane keep and adaptive cruise control, and doesn't take turns for you. Even if you bought the $12k option you don't have the beta until you reach that 98% or better safety score and opt in.
    - scrozier 4y ago
      We’ve paid for something several times now. They always make it sound like the car drives itself. But the real point of my comment was that if they can’t even keep the car in the middle of the lane, I seriously doubt their ability to handle situations an order of magnitude more difficult.
- glaucon 4y ago
  People love to follow people.
- simondotau 4y ago
  You are quoting someone who is egregiously misquoting and misunderstanding what Elon said in that recent earnings call. What he actually said: Of any technology development I’ve ever been involved in, I’ve never really seen more false dawns, or where it seems like we’re going to break through but we don’t as I’ve seen in full self-driving. And ultimately what it comes down to is that to solve full self-driving, you actually have to solve real world artificial intelligence. Which nobody has solved. The whole road system is made for biological neural nets and eyes. And so actually, when you think about it, in order to solve full self-driving, we have to solve neural nets and cameras to a degree of a capability that is on par with, and will really exceeds humans. And I think we will achieve that this year. The best way to reach your own assessment is to join the Tesla full self-driving beta program. We have over 100,000 people right now enrolled in that program. And we expect to broaden that significantly this year. So that’s my recommendation is join the full self-driving beta program, and experience it for yourself. And take note of the rate of improvement with every release. And we put out a new release roughly every two weeks. And you’ll see a little bit of two steps forward, one step back. But overall, the rate of improvement is incredibly quick. So that’s my recommendation for reaching your own assessment is, literally try it.
lorenzfx 4y ago
While the specs sound very underwhelming at first (geo-fenced on some roads, very low speeds, no bad weather), they seem to be so confident in their system, that they will take responsibility for the car when in autopilot. AFAIK, no other manufacturer does this for their systems (which capabilities they often make rather wild claims about).
- user3939382 4y ago
  > they seem to be so confident in their system Having spent a lifetime building networks and software that actually makes me nervous
  - switchbak 4y ago
    There's nothing about the way that I've seen automotive related software built that inspires me with confidence. Quite the opposite.
    - user3939382 4y ago
      If you've spent enough time building software you learn that the real world almost inevitably introduces edge cases that even the most careful testing couldn't foresee. Self driving to date has proven itself not to be an exception to this. I just can't imagine how Mercedes could be confident in a highly complex (self driving) system, designed to manage an insanely complex and unpredictable (driving) environment with no real-world tests. Maybe that's coming from the marketing/PR department and not engineering.
- davidvarela_us 4y ago
  few things inspire confidence like companies putting their literal money where their mouth is
  - slg 4y ago
    But haven't we all seen Fight Club? It isn't a question a confidence, it is a question of financial math. This decision tells us nothing about the safety of the Mercedes system compared to its competitors. All it tells us is that adding these limitations to ensure the system is only used in the safest possible scenarios makes taking over liability more reasonable. That isn't surprising. Their competitors' systems are also very safe if used in this manner. The only difference is that the competitors are not satisfied with releasing a system with enough limitations that it only works in stop-and-go highway traffic in clear weather. It is that added functionality that is more dangerous and the reason other manufacturers don't take on liability. Odds are the marketing and accounting wings of Mercedes had just as much if not more influence on this decision than the tech team.
a-dub 4y ago
there should be a qualification level for vehicles that can fully self drive at low speeds in heavy traffic on the highway so you can nap through traffic jams and then later enjoy your performance automobile by driving it yourself when it's clear. half the point of fancy cars is that they're fun to drive.
- MBCook 4y ago
  I think that may be level 4, but I’m not sure.
  - a-dub 4y ago
    it appears you're correct... but it is a much easier problem and one that i argue has massive bang for the buck _today_. robotaxis will probably happen at scale some day. but for now, "nap through bad traffic mode" would be pretty excellent both in terms of safety and utility.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      Phantom traffic jams are so common, where things aren’t moving as fast as they should because people keep slamming on their brakes and scaring the people behind them (who in turn do the same). Even if the original reason was good I imagine it makes a lot of real life traffic jams worse. But if the cars are all driving themselves, wouldn’t they avoid that? I wonder if traffic jams would get smaller just from the lack of that one issue.
      - a-dub 4y ago
        yeah, i've daydreamed about that. if enough cars opt in you could implement cooperative flow control algorithms. i think this has already been shown to help with advisory lane specific speed limits that are common in some parts of europe and the us. (the lit adaptive per lane speed limit signs that appear every mile or two.) even a few vehicles that drive intelligently in traffic could potentially have huge effects. and i'll say it again: why buy a fun vehicle like a tesla or a benz if you're just going to have the computer drive it in a way that the manufacturer's legal team is comfortable with? unless, of course, you're stuck in traffic. then let the lawyers drive and take a nap.
11thEarlOfMar 4y ago
Seems like we need to re-run the DARPA Grand Challenge. Local car clubs should be happy to work together to define a route and run the race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2AcMnfzpNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2AcMnfzpNg
lifeisstillgood 4y ago
For me the corollary of this ("you just invented a more expensive railway") is the business model assumptions that go away. Long distance trucking is still a likely winner, but there is still the "last mile / last off ramp". None of the business models touted today survive the new railway problem. That's not to say it's not a valuable technology - it's just we cannot whistle up a human shaped robot that just does what we want. In the same way a machine is shaped by its function, our cities and infrastructure green will be shaped by their function. Disneyland is built one level up, so that all the service tunnels (with I am sure some self driving robots) can get around without getting in the way of people. Whatever we rebuild our (climate neutral) cities to be, i think less surface space given to transport will be high
- fragmede 4y ago
  Boston's Big Dig is an example of this. Surface space is now a series of green parks with limited car access, and the cars moving through the city are underground. It's quite lovely, though it's detractors will ask if it was worth the cost.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    Last I heard it was horribly mismanaged, insanely over budget, went on for years longer than it was supposed to and the tunnels still had leaks. Admittedly I didn’t look closely but from what I heard it was a disaster project.
KaoruAoiShiho 4y ago
This is powered by nvidia i think: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/04/16/mercedes-benz-eqs-hyperscreen/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/04/16/mercedes-benz-eqs-h... This means if mercedes have it, so will many other automakers since nvidia sells to everyone.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Youden 4y ago
  The linked blog post seems to show off hardware but the software is all Mercedes, no? In that case automakers wouldn't be able to buy the self-driving capability from NVIDIA.
  - riotnrrd 4y ago
    NVIDIA has a large autonomous vehicle software team and releases public products (such as Driveworks: https://developer.nvidia.com/drive/driveworks https://developer.nvidia.com/drive/driveworks) as well as custom products for specific clients.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- mhh__ 4y ago
  With these press releases they can mean anything from "It's our tech but rebadged" to "We sold them a CAD program" so not always clear.
  - pgorczak 4y ago
    It’s probably something more. A recent article said 40% of Mercedes-Benz’ revenue from autonomous driving options will be going to Nvidia, starting 2024. Source in German: https://archive.ph/Gs9UD https://archive.ph/Gs9UD
- 4y ago
amelius 4y ago
What I don't get: if deep learning can recognize a crosswalk with 99.99% accuracy, that's very impressive. Yet it is not enough.
- vanviegen 4y ago
  Do human drivers spot crosswalks in time with higher accuracy? That seems very unlikely to me. Still, as long as the driver (human or otherwise) sees the pedestrian and vice versa, an accident can usually be avoided, with perhaps some angry shouting.
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  I can imagine this being at least two orders of magnitude higher than most human drivers (one in ten thousand misses versus one in one hundred). How many orders of magnitude better does it need to be before it's good enough?
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Missing one in a hundred intersections? That's insane. Most human drivers are much better than that and wouldn't keep their license (or their life) for long if they weren't.
    - eggsmediumrare 4y ago
      I dunno man, I live next to a school... And based on my observations, I think the actual occurence is probably closer to 1/100 than 1/10000.
  - amelius 4y ago
    My 99.99% was just a number for the sake of argument. The real accuracy of classification networks is usually in the range of 90-99%. It's not bad for a lot of tasks, but for self-driving I'd say it's far from sufficient.
- Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
  You get it correctly. Deep learning isn't inherently good for cases where you need to be right 100% of the time. But we don't have a better tool so the industry is trying to see how far they can push it. One big open question in self driving is: Do you have to be able to see/classify everything in the scene all the time to be a good driver? I think the answer is no (see: humans.) But, because most self driving stacks in the industry have chosen "3d classified representation of all of the objects in the scene" as a fundamental interface between perception and planning stages, there is a big challenge. (e.g. Representing uncertainty usefully is exceptionally difficult with this interface, among other things.)
ksubedi 4y ago
What most people here complaining about the "40 mph" limit do not realize is that below 40mph is where it's hardest to implement proper self driving, as majority of below 40mph driving will be in city streets with pedestrians, frequent turns and more variables. Anything higher will generally be in highways where lane assist cruise control systems are already more than good enough. I will gladly take a system that can drive itself confidently under 40mph in city, and use basic lane assist (and maybe lane changes and exit ramps like in Teslas) for highways. Cant wait!
- hooloovoo_zoo 4y ago
  I really don’t think they’re more than good enough on highways. Even teslas still veer over when they encounter on-ramp-merges.
  - xixixao 4y ago
    Hardly a problem in Europe where on ramps are much better (one lane is primary and one is joining).
    - jhugo 4y ago
      Europe is quite diverse in this respect. Italy for example has many highways that I would be terrified to let autopilot try to navigate merges on.
      - shapefrog 4y ago
        Italy for example has many highways that I am terrified to try to navigate merges on. Spain too!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- judge2020 4y ago
  > under 40mph in city, from the video: > but once we hit some traffic we go under 40 miles an hour we'll be able to engage it but there are some other caveats: you have to be on a highway, the weather has to be nice, it can't be raining, it can't be freezing, and you can't change lanes; you have to stay in your lane while drive pilot is enabled Hence the need for geofencing to the easiest situations where assuming liability means assuming nearly 0 liability. I really hope it progresses but we'll see in 3-5 years.
shoulderfake 4y ago
lesgobrandon 4y ago
Havoc 4y ago
What exactly is this "internationally valid certification" they're banging on about and how is it the first?
- judge2020 4y ago
  > internationally valid certification I think they mean "certified for level 3 in >1 countries".
gzer0 4y ago
> Drive Pilot can only be engaged on a certain highways, and the car must not exceed 40 miles per hour. > The system will only operate during the daytime, in reasonably clear weather, and without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning [1]. There's a very limited subset of areas that one would be able to use this. [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/23/mercedes-will-be-legally-responsible-while-drive-pilot-system-is-engaged/ https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/23/mercedes-will-be-legall...
- jzz 4y ago
  Mercedes system seems as capable as my 2002 Nissan's cruise control.
  - FinnKuhn 4y ago
    You, however, aren't allowed to use your phone in these situations with the car manufacturer assuming all liability.
Animats 4y ago
This is real progress. Ad video.[1] Still very limited. Won't work at night. Has a LIDAR, but it's in the front grille, which only gives it enough of a view for anti-collision. We should be seeing review videos soon. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ue7ISC3eHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ue7ISC3eHQ
- mwint 4y ago
  That video is completely animated.
  - miyuru 4y ago
    no its not
blhack 4y ago
It needs to be going under 40mph and on a highway, which sounds like this only works in stop and got traffic on the freeway. Pretty cool.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  I wonder why that speed limit would exist. Sensor range? Computational power? It seems like the difference between being able to self-drive at 40 and at 65 on the same road would not be all that significant.
  - zip1234 4y ago
    Perhaps because 65 has exponentially more energy in collisions and more likely to cause death? If it is limited to 40, death is less likely and therefore chance of negative news. So I would venture just a risk calculation for initial release.
    - sib 4y ago
      Literally 164% more energy - not exponentially.
      - zip1234 4y ago
        You used 1/2mv^2? It is 2.64 times the energy. Squared means it is increasing exponentially
        jeffbee 4y ago
        No, quadratically. Exponentially would be if it was some term raised to the exponent of the velocity.
        zip1234 4y ago
        Ok, fair enough—-looks like I cannot update the original post anymore though
black_13 4y ago
belter 4y ago
Recent discussion: "Mercedes to accept legal responsibility for a vehicle when Drive Pilot is active" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30763522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30763522
zw123456 4y ago
drewg123 4y ago
One of the youtube channels I watch has been testing driver assistance features, and apparently Mercedes didn't do so well. I have not watched the video yet, and I'm just going by the clickbait title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irFzESPCegA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irFzESPCegA They tested a "brand new Mercedes GLS 450 4MATIC with the maximum level of driver assistance available in this model." I wonder how much tech that shares with their L3 system..
- upbeat_general 4y ago
  I don't have actual knowledge of the codebase but given the different sensor inputs and application, they're unlikely to share much in common behind shared libraries, drivers, etc. Localization w/HD maps, actor forecasting, LiDAR based detectors, etc. are generally not present in L2 systems and are much more involved.
GrantsUsername 4y ago
Looking forward to it. Hopefully it’ll be better/equal to Tesla’s FSD. I assume it won’t be, but idk the range of how good FSD is really.
zydex 4y ago
A point I commonly hear made from both Tesla and Comma.ai for example is that Lidar is far too expensive with Waymo's vehicle costing a total of $200,000 and that cameras alone are sufficient for full self driving. I do think that cameras alone are probably sufficient for full self-driving but every time I hear this point I think to myself that self driving progress is moving so slowly on the camera-only front that Lidar might become so affordable by the time camera-only makes substantial progress that by that point it was much more efficient to just have been developing with Lidar from the start. Am I missing something or just completely wrong? I would really appreciate any insight on this.
- xiphias2 4y ago
  ,,Lidar might become so affordable by the time camera-only makes substantial progress that by that point it was much more efficient to just have been developing with Lidar from the start.'' Tesla and Comma are already making profit with great margins that they needed a lot when they started developing self driving capabilities. Waymo is using Google's coffers, but so far they lost billions of dollars that they have to get back. Regarding Lidar I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the Robotaxi that comes out in 1-2 years from Tesla, but maybe it would be a PR nightmare at this point.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    The problem with Lidar is that it doesn’t work well in bad weather. So it’s not the “endgame” technology - that’s vision. It’s a bridging technology. Whether that bridge is needed today is an open question.
    - sangnoir 4y ago
      > The problem with Lidar is that it doesn’t work well in bad weather Cameras don't work well in bad weather either.
- TaylorAlexander 4y ago
  I would say the race isn’t over yet. One thing to consider is the training dataset. By using only vision, Tesla was able to start collecting data with their entire fleet starting many years ago. They probably have more edge case data than anyone else, in more diverse driving situations. They would not have been able to do this if they needed to use expensive lidar on company owned training vehicles. What we will likely see is that lidar equipped vehicles gain a lot of ground at first, but have to be rolled out slowly both due to cost and how they are trained. Tesla’s vision based fleet could get an update tomorrow that theoretically was able to drive almost anywhere. Of course, Tesla has clearly been finding out that while vision is in principle sufficient, the brains behind the cameras are not so simple. In my opinion it’s still too early to call who will win in the end.
whazor 4y ago
I really wish cars removed from residential areas and inner city, basically anywhere people are walking around. It makes self driving much easier and also eliminate the need for parking. You would walk a bit more (like five minutes), to a bus stop and be picked up by a car. Much healthier and probably causes less congestion too. Within city's and residential areas you can have nice bike and walking paths and more room for nature.
- acd 4y ago
  Car company combined with out of city center parking company combined with bus / electric rental bikes. This is a much more modern city design pattern!
- speedgoose 4y ago
  It needs to be convenient. I personally don’t want to bike or walk 5 minutes in the snow with my toddler and bags before driving every time. I used to bike or walk to a carpool car quite a few times. But I was driving back home to pick my family and bags.
- xputer 4y ago
  Yes, luckily it seems cities are slowly starting to realize that allowing cars everywhere and infinitely widening roads is not scalable and, more importantly, does not create a pleasant environment for people to be outside in. The future is definitely creating more walkable/cyclable cities and improving public transit. Self driving cars have the potential to make things even worse by generating new car trips that otherwise wouldn't have been made.
perlgeek 4y ago
About 4 months ago I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29520685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29520685 > I'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. I've gotten an even newer Mercedes since then (A250e, build finished 2022-03), and it's really impressive. The lane assistant no longer makes a mess in construction areas. It has adaptive cruise control, which works REALLY well, and I'd be comfortable relying on that on the highway, for example. It's sometimes breaks when I wouldn't, in dense traffic when I'm approaching an obstruction that I will drive around later. It has an enhanced lane assistant which does small corrections much earlier than the regular lane assistant, which I found annoying and switched off. It has sensors to the side and back to be aware of approaching cars when switching lanes. Long trips have become much more less stressful with that, and I can totally believe that this is on a good way towards level 3 self-driving. (This doesn't include the self-driving package, it's "just" what you get when you pay for the regular security/assistance tech).
ricardobayes 4y ago
This is the only way to roll out a product unless you're a die-hard technologist who believes in 'death by marketing'.
chiph 4y ago
I'll consider using a self-driving system when it can safely drive the length of the Tail of the Dragon without using preloaded data for it (that would be cheating). The dragon has good pavement, clear markings, the occasional driveway, and 318 curves in 11 miles (18km). In this video from December 2021, the Model 3 crosses the yellow line repeatedly into the oncoming lane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4yMGbRa4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4yMGbRa4Q (long video)
sytelus 4y ago
I wonder if this is in-house development or are they just riding on NVidia stack? Traditional car companies don’t have culture in place to create necessary AI infrastructure and attract the talent pool.
tracyholmes355 4y ago
That's really interesting. Let me quickly share this with you guys, It makes sense, BTC and crypto is helping to regulate, rather than pretend it won't ever happen. The big institutions getting in is the catalyst that will launch us into the stratosphere. Most people don't like change but after the change is made they grow used to it and it becomes a non issue usually because their fears never materialize. And benefits they were unaware of before turn out to be far more beneficial. Few if any rug pulls. The projects that initiated the process of regulation have not been ruined, they got involved in setting guidelines and helping the regulators understand the crypto space. I’d get involved more knowing that I have made over 10` btc from day-trade with norrelsmith8 @ gmail .com gm in few weeks

254 points by mxschumacher 4y ago

European Exceptionalism, ladies and gentlemen. The real engineering, no fluff.

If tesla still has issues with self-driving cars and they are like a decade if not more ahead of everyone else. I dont believe this PR stunt.

qeternity 4y ago
Wow. Or Tesla are the real masters of the PR stunt, and are not a decade ahead of everyone. EDIT I watched this comment drop from 15 pts to 5 pts. The Elon apologists are out in full force.
- Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
  I believe that Tesla is ahead in the self-driving industry from an overall technology perspective. What they have failed to do, however, is to tackle the problem of when and how much the user can actually trust their system. This leaves users to struggle to build their own mental models of the same ("Oh, it likes this road", "I don't trust it at high speeds", etc.) This is terrible UX. Mercedes seems to be stepping up to the plate to actually take a stab at this problem. Inevitably the answers to these questions are not super impressive compared to Tesla's 'hey, it might work in any situation, you never know' approach. But I suspect users will really like it, even though the underlying tech is likely far behind Tesla's.
  - qeternity 4y ago
    > I believe that Tesla is ahead in the self-driving industry from an overall technology perspective. What info could you possibly have access to that would give you remotely enough confidence to assess this? I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just saying I doubt you have the info to claim this.
    - Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
      Reasonable. It's an 'I believe' claim based not an 'based on these facts' claim. But, I am more informed that most as I spent five years in the industry leading all algorithm/ML development for autonomous systems at Apple. (Who I am leaving out of this analysis BTW :)
      - qeternity 4y ago
        So what are you believing if it’s not based on facts? Also you surely can understand that your work on AS at Apple has no bearing on what Tesla is doing, correct? Am I missing something here?
        pojzon 4y ago
        Self-driving car is not only radar and good model. Tesla has their own battery factories, own mines, own delivery chain, years of experience of actual real world traffic data from all around the world. You have to look at volume, Tesla soon will be producing millions of electric cars per year. They already won the market. It will take years for competition to catch up. If ppl want to gamble with their money and buy a car that never hit a real world traffic -> let them do it, but every other manufacturer is going to have to go through the same painful process as Tesla already did. Not even mentioning that no other company beside maybe Toyota has any real experience with electric cars.
        qeternity 4y ago
        What on earth does level 5 autonomy have to do with EVs? Literally nothing above has any relation to autonomy.
        pojzon 4y ago
        It means that competition has ALOT of things to focus on to even be on pair. Tesla on the other hand has to only focus on one thing now.. And none of those companies reached lv5. So my bet would be on company that has the best focus.
wollsmoth 4y ago
Maybe LIDAR is more useful than Tesla thought.
- simondotau 4y ago
  What mistakes is FSD beta currently making that would be solved with more accurate localisation of the vehicle? Are you aware of any situations where mistakes are being made as a result of errors in depth estimation? Seriously, look at any FSD beta video and you’ll quickly recognise that its ability to sense the road is mature and robust; most errors are in the planner.
smileysteve 4y ago
> they are like a decade if not more ahead of everyone else. Mercedes has been investing radar since the Tesla Roadster. They are ahead of Tesla when for European regulation.
martin8412 4y ago
Tesla and Elon Musk are lying through their teeth every option they get. They can't even detect stationary emergency vehicles ffs.. Mercedes is accepting liability whenever their self driving system is engaged, meaning their insurance is on the hook. So I think they're pretty damn certain that it will work as intended.
- 01100011 4y ago
  In my uninformed estimation, I think Elon, like a lot of us 7-8 years ago, saw the recent advances in deep learning and figured they'd be capable of anything in a few years. You just need to scale them up and train the shit out of them and out pops self driving. Some of us have since repented but Tesla made too many promises so they've got to keep pushing that narrative or they become just another car company.
jjtheblunt 4y ago
or tesla made a bad engineering decision that stalled progress?
chucknthem 4y ago
Tesla owner here, have friends that work at Cruise. Tesla is waaayy behind cruise and waymo on the self driving front. Those other companies actually have fully driverless cars driving around San Francisco. Tesla is not even close. I think GM will have the best self driving system if they manage to commercialize the tech cruise built.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  "If", as the Spartans famously said to Big Alex's dad. Ah, well, let's hope GM manages to comercialize the stuff. (The Spartans were undefeated, but became irrelevant and dwindled, just a past legend for others to wave around as political advertising. Sic transit ...)
freeflight 4y ago
> I dont believe this PR stunt. PR stunts usually don't come with official regulatory approval, tho they commonly come with grand promises [0] and the actual product not living up to them [1] [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53418069 [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqevk/the-government-is-finally-catching-up-with-teslas-wild-autopilot-claims https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqevk/the-government-is-fin...
myko 4y ago
Tesla seems way behind companies like Waymo It's all marketing hype, I say this as a Model S owner with FSD

henrikschroder 4y ago

Meanwhile at Tesla: "We're the industry leaders, wait for us!"

LightG 4y ago
"Our leader of all things FSD is on sabbatical, please bare with us"
- VirusNewbie 4y ago
  Karpathy doesn’t lead FSD.
  - LightG 4y ago
    "Director of AI at Tesla, leading the Autopilot Vision team" Whichever way you cut it, that's a pretty significant situation for FSD at this time. In my eyes, FSD is over, and has been for 2 years. They'll get to Lane Assist ^2 but that's it. None of the pretty youtube videos convince me, and there are just as many which are terrible.
01100011 4y ago
Hey, they've had self driving ready to go next year since 2014(https://youtu.be/o7oZ-AQszEI https://youtu.be/o7oZ-AQszEI). Why so cynical? :)
- judge2020 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30856861 The claims up until 2018 were met. 2018 is when Tesla got the hang of Model 3 production, so their value now had to come from promises like FSD beta.
  - I_DRINK_KOOLAID 4y ago
    > 2018 The Saudis should have had come through. In a rare moment of clarity Musk self-diagnosed and understood that he can't be trusted with a public company. He takes the stock price (and generally everything that impacts or perceived as impacting the stock price) too personally. His best work was when he was at the helm of a private company out of the public eye. Unfortunately I think he became addicted to attention and can't go back. All the former members of the PayPal mafia became addicted to being high ranked generals in the culture and political wars raging in across the country.

wyldfire 4y ago

> Mercedes-Benz Cars says it plans to release “Drive Pilot,” a conditionally automated Level 3 system for automated driving I think it's pretty irresponsible to publish a picture of a driver taking his eyes off the road to play Tetris on a system designed for Level 3.

MBCook 4y ago
“Level 3 autonomous driving, as defined by SAE International, means that the driver can hand over control to the vehicle, but must be ready to take over when prompted” (from an EU car site) At level 3 the driver no longer has to constantly monitor the road, but they can’t exactly go to sleep because they need to be ready to take over in a few seconds. Given that the image seems reasonable.
- microtherion 4y ago
  In the specific case of the Mercedes-Benz system, if the driver does not take over in a timely manner, the car will find a safe place to come to a stop, activate the emergency lights, and unlock the doors, so you'd probably live even if you did fall asleep: https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2019-02-20-vssa-mercedes-benz-drive-pilot-a.pdf https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2...
SheinhardtWigCo 4y ago
Not if the system is designed to achieve a minimal risk condition by itself or give the driver sufficient warning to take over. Level 3 includes systems that can handle an emergency situation but require the driver to respond within some limited time.
freeflight 4y ago
That's pretty much the definition of level 3; > In certain situations, the driver can turn attention away from the road, but most always be ready to take full control again. https://www.blickfeld.com/blog/levels-of-autonomous-driving/ https://www.blickfeld.com/blog/levels-of-autonomous-driving/
4y ago

gitfan86 4y ago

"it's geofenced to certain roads, and only work under 40mph", " you should not use this in the rain" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMNnOosjrBo&ab_channel=Engadget https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMNnOosjrBo&ab_channel=Engad...

verisimi 4y ago
> "Geofenced" That's the word. That's the plan. We will be geofenced, there will be a kill switch. You will not be able to go where you want, except if the government allows it. In fact, I think Uber is the best example of geofencing we have for the long run. In the medium term, self-driving cars you still own will fill the gap.
- QuercusMax 4y ago
  You're making a pretty big leap there from "our experimental self-driving mode only works inside the geofence" to "the government won't let you drive where you want".
  - verisimi 4y ago
    Yes, a huge leap. I can't possibly imagine that government would pass legislation that all the automakers would comply with. /s https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/biden-infrastructure-bill-vehicle-kill-switch-2026/ https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/biden-infrastructure-bil... "Deep within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law by President Joe Biden is a passage that will require automakers to begin including what can be best summarized as a “vehicle kill switch” within the operating software of new cars, which is described in the bill as “advanced drunk and impaired driving prevention technology”. The measure has been positioned as a safety tool to help prevent drunk driving, and by 2026 (three years after the enactment of the Act, per the text) the kill switch could be mandated on every new car sold in the United States. Then there’s the broader reaching RIDE Act, which we’ll touch on in a moment."
    - verisimi 4y ago

halotrope 4y ago

Meanwhile in Jerusalem https://youtu.be/pDyMzz8HMIc https://youtu.be/pDyMzz8HMIc

runetech 4y ago
Wow. That was pretty convincing. Thanks for sharing.
- halotrope 4y ago
  Agreed. It should be kept in mind that Mobileye solution has not really seen a wide rollout and scrutiny yet. One can be optimistic considering that the CEO Amnon Shashua is known for a very careful and responsible conduct compared to e.g Tesla. This apparently let to them having a falling out because Tesla overpromised on the old stack selling it as “Autopilot” when it was L2 at best. Which resulted in them doing FSD from scratch after Mobileye cancelled the collaboration after a deathly accident. At least this seems to be the semi-official account of things.
  - fastball 4y ago
    The levelling system in self-driving really needs to die. If Autopilot is L2 at best how is the OC L3? What features does the Mercedes Drive Pilot solution have that AP does not?
    - upbeat_general 4y ago
      LiDAR for one: current SOTA monocular depth estimation is pretty poor compared to even poor LiDAR
      - fastball 4y ago
        That's a sensor not a feature.
sebmellen 4y ago
אני משוכנע

verisimi 4y ago

everyone 4y ago

Is it still designed to mow down pedestrians? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15344706/self-driving-mercedes-will-prioritize-occupant-safety-over-pedestrians/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15344706/self-driving-mer... Mercedes ethics: Save the people who can afford lawyers.

rootusrootus 4y ago
That's such a ridiculous problem to worry about. Humans don't try to solve the trolley problem, either, I don't know why we suddenly expect computers to be able to do it. The real answer is actually simple, and it's basically the same advice for human drivers: stop the car, however you can. Don't try to swerve, don't get clever, just dynamite the brakes and hope for the best. Or as they say on the race track "both pedals in!" Anything else is foolishness. I think magazines just like to talk about it because it makes people click.
- everyone 4y ago
  Your argument works both ways. Lets say a truck is driving on the wrong side of the road and is going to flatten the mercedes (not too uncommon as truck drivers seem to be crazy and will overtake each other). Lets say it's possible to swerve onto the footpath and squash some pedestrians in order to avoid the truck. A human driver wont be solving the trolley problem here and will probably just die. It sounds Mercedes goal is for the car to save the driver and kill the pedestrians in this situation.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Read what the Mercedes guy actually said, though. Swerving is bad, because it in no way guarantees a better result, and increases the risk substantially of making things worse. Any tire grip you use to swerve isn't being used to stop, and the best way to minimize damage to the car, and by extension risk to the occupant, is to get kinetic energy as low as possible and rely on the safety cage for the rest. The magazine writer frames it as "Mercedes is making a choice in the trolley problem, and that choice is the driver" as if that's actually a decision being made, instead of the entirely expected result of trying to slow the car enough that regular safety systems are likely to save the life of the driver. Mercedes is doing the opposite of trying to solve the trolley problem, they're declaring it pointless to try. It's much more plausible to get the car into the "driver is very unlikely to die" kinetic range than it is to get it down to "pedestrian is very unlikely to die." So, back to your hypothetical -- the Mercedes won't be swerving for the pedestrians, because that'll statistically increase the risk to the driver. The car may very well still get hit by that truck, but now it'll be on the driver side instead of the front crumple zone. And who knows what else happens after the car becomes ballistic because it collided with something.

rootusrootus 4y ago

Is there a map somewhere that discloses which roads it will be permitted on?

mdoms 4y ago

[flagged]

scrozier 4y ago
I own a Model 3 and love it. But you're 100% right: the "full self driving" claim Musk/Tesla has been making for years is bizarre. I live in a major city and have never had a trip using FSD where I didn't have to take control multiple times. At times, updates seem to make it get worse. Simple example, on a highway, it can't even keep the car in the middle of the lane through moderate curves. It almost always drifts to the outside, sometimes onto or over the lane marker. And I know it's doing this because I can watch it on the display, so the car clearly knows it's not centered. Surely this should be a trivial task (as self-driving tasks go).
- judge2020 4y ago
  > using FSD Unless you mean FSD Beta, Autopilot is just lane keep and adaptive cruise control, and doesn't take turns for you. Even if you bought the $12k option you don't have the beta until you reach that 98% or better safety score and opt in.
  - scrozier 4y ago
    We’ve paid for something several times now. They always make it sound like the car drives itself. But the real point of my comment was that if they can’t even keep the car in the middle of the lane, I seriously doubt their ability to handle situations an order of magnitude more difficult.
glaucon 4y ago
People love to follow people.
simondotau 4y ago
You are quoting someone who is egregiously misquoting and misunderstanding what Elon said in that recent earnings call. What he actually said: Of any technology development I’ve ever been involved in, I’ve never really seen more false dawns, or where it seems like we’re going to break through but we don’t as I’ve seen in full self-driving. And ultimately what it comes down to is that to solve full self-driving, you actually have to solve real world artificial intelligence. Which nobody has solved. The whole road system is made for biological neural nets and eyes. And so actually, when you think about it, in order to solve full self-driving, we have to solve neural nets and cameras to a degree of a capability that is on par with, and will really exceeds humans. And I think we will achieve that this year. The best way to reach your own assessment is to join the Tesla full self-driving beta program. We have over 100,000 people right now enrolled in that program. And we expect to broaden that significantly this year. So that’s my recommendation is join the full self-driving beta program, and experience it for yourself. And take note of the rate of improvement with every release. And we put out a new release roughly every two weeks. And you’ll see a little bit of two steps forward, one step back. But overall, the rate of improvement is incredibly quick. So that’s my recommendation for reaching your own assessment is, literally try it.

lorenzfx 4y ago

While the specs sound very underwhelming at first (geo-fenced on some roads, very low speeds, no bad weather), they seem to be so confident in their system, that they will take responsibility for the car when in autopilot. AFAIK, no other manufacturer does this for their systems (which capabilities they often make rather wild claims about).

user3939382 4y ago
> they seem to be so confident in their system Having spent a lifetime building networks and software that actually makes me nervous
- switchbak 4y ago
  There's nothing about the way that I've seen automotive related software built that inspires me with confidence. Quite the opposite.
  - user3939382 4y ago
    If you've spent enough time building software you learn that the real world almost inevitably introduces edge cases that even the most careful testing couldn't foresee. Self driving to date has proven itself not to be an exception to this. I just can't imagine how Mercedes could be confident in a highly complex (self driving) system, designed to manage an insanely complex and unpredictable (driving) environment with no real-world tests. Maybe that's coming from the marketing/PR department and not engineering.
davidvarela_us 4y ago
few things inspire confidence like companies putting their literal money where their mouth is
- slg 4y ago
  But haven't we all seen Fight Club? It isn't a question a confidence, it is a question of financial math. This decision tells us nothing about the safety of the Mercedes system compared to its competitors. All it tells us is that adding these limitations to ensure the system is only used in the safest possible scenarios makes taking over liability more reasonable. That isn't surprising. Their competitors' systems are also very safe if used in this manner. The only difference is that the competitors are not satisfied with releasing a system with enough limitations that it only works in stop-and-go highway traffic in clear weather. It is that added functionality that is more dangerous and the reason other manufacturers don't take on liability. Odds are the marketing and accounting wings of Mercedes had just as much if not more influence on this decision than the tech team.

a-dub 4y ago

there should be a qualification level for vehicles that can fully self drive at low speeds in heavy traffic on the highway so you can nap through traffic jams and then later enjoy your performance automobile by driving it yourself when it's clear. half the point of fancy cars is that they're fun to drive.

MBCook 4y ago
I think that may be level 4, but I’m not sure.
- a-dub 4y ago
  it appears you're correct... but it is a much easier problem and one that i argue has massive bang for the buck _today_. robotaxis will probably happen at scale some day. but for now, "nap through bad traffic mode" would be pretty excellent both in terms of safety and utility.
  - MBCook 4y ago
    Phantom traffic jams are so common, where things aren’t moving as fast as they should because people keep slamming on their brakes and scaring the people behind them (who in turn do the same). Even if the original reason was good I imagine it makes a lot of real life traffic jams worse. But if the cars are all driving themselves, wouldn’t they avoid that? I wonder if traffic jams would get smaller just from the lack of that one issue.
    - a-dub 4y ago
      yeah, i've daydreamed about that. if enough cars opt in you could implement cooperative flow control algorithms. i think this has already been shown to help with advisory lane specific speed limits that are common in some parts of europe and the us. (the lit adaptive per lane speed limit signs that appear every mile or two.) even a few vehicles that drive intelligently in traffic could potentially have huge effects. and i'll say it again: why buy a fun vehicle like a tesla or a benz if you're just going to have the computer drive it in a way that the manufacturer's legal team is comfortable with? unless, of course, you're stuck in traffic. then let the lawyers drive and take a nap.

11thEarlOfMar 4y ago

Seems like we need to re-run the DARPA Grand Challenge. Local car clubs should be happy to work together to define a route and run the race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2AcMnfzpNg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2AcMnfzpNg

lifeisstillgood 4y ago

For me the corollary of this ("you just invented a more expensive railway") is the business model assumptions that go away. Long distance trucking is still a likely winner, but there is still the "last mile / last off ramp". None of the business models touted today survive the new railway problem. That's not to say it's not a valuable technology - it's just we cannot whistle up a human shaped robot that just does what we want. In the same way a machine is shaped by its function, our cities and infrastructure green will be shaped by their function. Disneyland is built one level up, so that all the service tunnels (with I am sure some self driving robots) can get around without getting in the way of people. Whatever we rebuild our (climate neutral) cities to be, i think less surface space given to transport will be high

fragmede 4y ago
Boston's Big Dig is an example of this. Surface space is now a series of green parks with limited car access, and the cars moving through the city are underground. It's quite lovely, though it's detractors will ask if it was worth the cost.
- user3939382 4y ago
  Last I heard it was horribly mismanaged, insanely over budget, went on for years longer than it was supposed to and the tunnels still had leaks. Admittedly I didn’t look closely but from what I heard it was a disaster project.

KaoruAoiShiho 4y ago

This is powered by nvidia i think: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/04/16/mercedes-benz-eqs-hyperscreen/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/04/16/mercedes-benz-eqs-h... This means if mercedes have it, so will many other automakers since nvidia sells to everyone.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Youden 4y ago
The linked blog post seems to show off hardware but the software is all Mercedes, no? In that case automakers wouldn't be able to buy the self-driving capability from NVIDIA.
- riotnrrd 4y ago
  NVIDIA has a large autonomous vehicle software team and releases public products (such as Driveworks: https://developer.nvidia.com/drive/driveworks https://developer.nvidia.com/drive/driveworks) as well as custom products for specific clients.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
mhh__ 4y ago
With these press releases they can mean anything from "It's our tech but rebadged" to "We sold them a CAD program" so not always clear.
- pgorczak 4y ago
  It’s probably something more. A recent article said 40% of Mercedes-Benz’ revenue from autonomous driving options will be going to Nvidia, starting 2024. Source in German: https://archive.ph/Gs9UD https://archive.ph/Gs9UD
4y ago

amelius 4y ago

What I don't get: if deep learning can recognize a crosswalk with 99.99% accuracy, that's very impressive. Yet it is not enough.

vanviegen 4y ago
Do human drivers spot crosswalks in time with higher accuracy? That seems very unlikely to me. Still, as long as the driver (human or otherwise) sees the pedestrian and vice versa, an accident can usually be avoided, with perhaps some angry shouting.
bastawhiz 4y ago
I can imagine this being at least two orders of magnitude higher than most human drivers (one in ten thousand misses versus one in one hundred). How many orders of magnitude better does it need to be before it's good enough?
- robonerd 4y ago
  Missing one in a hundred intersections? That's insane. Most human drivers are much better than that and wouldn't keep their license (or their life) for long if they weren't.
  - eggsmediumrare 4y ago
    I dunno man, I live next to a school... And based on my observations, I think the actual occurence is probably closer to 1/100 than 1/10000.
- amelius 4y ago
  My 99.99% was just a number for the sake of argument. The real accuracy of classification networks is usually in the range of 90-99%. It's not bad for a lot of tasks, but for self-driving I'd say it's far from sufficient.
Dave_Rosenthal 4y ago
You get it correctly. Deep learning isn't inherently good for cases where you need to be right 100% of the time. But we don't have a better tool so the industry is trying to see how far they can push it. One big open question in self driving is: Do you have to be able to see/classify everything in the scene all the time to be a good driver? I think the answer is no (see: humans.) But, because most self driving stacks in the industry have chosen "3d classified representation of all of the objects in the scene" as a fundamental interface between perception and planning stages, there is a big challenge. (e.g. Representing uncertainty usefully is exceptionally difficult with this interface, among other things.)

ksubedi 4y ago

What most people here complaining about the "40 mph" limit do not realize is that below 40mph is where it's hardest to implement proper self driving, as majority of below 40mph driving will be in city streets with pedestrians, frequent turns and more variables. Anything higher will generally be in highways where lane assist cruise control systems are already more than good enough. I will gladly take a system that can drive itself confidently under 40mph in city, and use basic lane assist (and maybe lane changes and exit ramps like in Teslas) for highways. Cant wait!

hooloovoo_zoo 4y ago
I really don’t think they’re more than good enough on highways. Even teslas still veer over when they encounter on-ramp-merges.
- xixixao 4y ago
  Hardly a problem in Europe where on ramps are much better (one lane is primary and one is joining).
  - jhugo 4y ago
    Europe is quite diverse in this respect. Italy for example has many highways that I would be terrified to let autopilot try to navigate merges on.
    - shapefrog 4y ago
      Italy for example has many highways that I am terrified to try to navigate merges on. Spain too!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
judge2020 4y ago
> under 40mph in city, from the video: > but once we hit some traffic we go under 40 miles an hour we'll be able to engage it but there are some other caveats: you have to be on a highway, the weather has to be nice, it can't be raining, it can't be freezing, and you can't change lanes; you have to stay in your lane while drive pilot is enabled Hence the need for geofencing to the easiest situations where assuming liability means assuming nearly 0 liability. I really hope it progresses but we'll see in 3-5 years.

shoulderfake 4y ago

lesgobrandon 4y ago

Havoc 4y ago

What exactly is this "internationally valid certification" they're banging on about and how is it the first?

judge2020 4y ago
> internationally valid certification I think they mean "certified for level 3 in >1 countries".

gzer0 4y ago

> Drive Pilot can only be engaged on a certain highways, and the car must not exceed 40 miles per hour. > The system will only operate during the daytime, in reasonably clear weather, and without overhead obstructions. Inclement weather, construction zones, tunnels, and emergency vehicles will all trigger a handover warning [1]. There's a very limited subset of areas that one would be able to use this. [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/23/mercedes-will-be-legally-responsible-while-drive-pilot-system-is-engaged/ https://cleantechnica.com/2022/03/23/mercedes-will-be-legall...

jzz 4y ago
Mercedes system seems as capable as my 2002 Nissan's cruise control.
- FinnKuhn 4y ago
  You, however, aren't allowed to use your phone in these situations with the car manufacturer assuming all liability.

Animats 4y ago

This is real progress. Ad video.[1] Still very limited. Won't work at night. Has a LIDAR, but it's in the front grille, which only gives it enough of a view for anti-collision. We should be seeing review videos soon. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ue7ISC3eHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ue7ISC3eHQ

mwint 4y ago
That video is completely animated.
- miyuru 4y ago
  no its not

blhack 4y ago

It needs to be going under 40mph and on a highway, which sounds like this only works in stop and got traffic on the freeway. Pretty cool.

jeffbee 4y ago
I wonder why that speed limit would exist. Sensor range? Computational power? It seems like the difference between being able to self-drive at 40 and at 65 on the same road would not be all that significant.
- zip1234 4y ago
  Perhaps because 65 has exponentially more energy in collisions and more likely to cause death? If it is limited to 40, death is less likely and therefore chance of negative news. So I would venture just a risk calculation for initial release.
  - sib 4y ago
    Literally 164% more energy - not exponentially.
    - zip1234 4y ago
      You used 1/2mv^2? It is 2.64 times the energy. Squared means it is increasing exponentially
      - jeffbee 4y ago
        No, quadratically. Exponentially would be if it was some term raised to the exponent of the velocity.
        zip1234 4y ago
        Ok, fair enough—-looks like I cannot update the original post anymore though

black_13 4y ago

belter 4y ago

Recent discussion: "Mercedes to accept legal responsibility for a vehicle when Drive Pilot is active" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30763522 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30763522

zw123456 4y ago

drewg123 4y ago

One of the youtube channels I watch has been testing driver assistance features, and apparently Mercedes didn't do so well. I have not watched the video yet, and I'm just going by the clickbait title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irFzESPCegA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irFzESPCegA They tested a "brand new Mercedes GLS 450 4MATIC with the maximum level of driver assistance available in this model." I wonder how much tech that shares with their L3 system..

upbeat_general 4y ago
I don't have actual knowledge of the codebase but given the different sensor inputs and application, they're unlikely to share much in common behind shared libraries, drivers, etc. Localization w/HD maps, actor forecasting, LiDAR based detectors, etc. are generally not present in L2 systems and are much more involved.

GrantsUsername 4y ago

Looking forward to it. Hopefully it’ll be better/equal to Tesla’s FSD. I assume it won’t be, but idk the range of how good FSD is really.

zydex 4y ago

A point I commonly hear made from both Tesla and Comma.ai for example is that Lidar is far too expensive with Waymo's vehicle costing a total of $200,000 and that cameras alone are sufficient for full self driving. I do think that cameras alone are probably sufficient for full self-driving but every time I hear this point I think to myself that self driving progress is moving so slowly on the camera-only front that Lidar might become so affordable by the time camera-only makes substantial progress that by that point it was much more efficient to just have been developing with Lidar from the start. Am I missing something or just completely wrong? I would really appreciate any insight on this.

xiphias2 4y ago
,,Lidar might become so affordable by the time camera-only makes substantial progress that by that point it was much more efficient to just have been developing with Lidar from the start.'' Tesla and Comma are already making profit with great margins that they needed a lot when they started developing self driving capabilities. Waymo is using Google's coffers, but so far they lost billions of dollars that they have to get back. Regarding Lidar I wouldn't be surprised to see it in the Robotaxi that comes out in 1-2 years from Tesla, but maybe it would be a PR nightmare at this point.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  The problem with Lidar is that it doesn’t work well in bad weather. So it’s not the “endgame” technology - that’s vision. It’s a bridging technology. Whether that bridge is needed today is an open question.
  - sangnoir 4y ago
    > The problem with Lidar is that it doesn’t work well in bad weather Cameras don't work well in bad weather either.
TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I would say the race isn’t over yet. One thing to consider is the training dataset. By using only vision, Tesla was able to start collecting data with their entire fleet starting many years ago. They probably have more edge case data than anyone else, in more diverse driving situations. They would not have been able to do this if they needed to use expensive lidar on company owned training vehicles. What we will likely see is that lidar equipped vehicles gain a lot of ground at first, but have to be rolled out slowly both due to cost and how they are trained. Tesla’s vision based fleet could get an update tomorrow that theoretically was able to drive almost anywhere. Of course, Tesla has clearly been finding out that while vision is in principle sufficient, the brains behind the cameras are not so simple. In my opinion it’s still too early to call who will win in the end.

whazor 4y ago

I really wish cars removed from residential areas and inner city, basically anywhere people are walking around. It makes self driving much easier and also eliminate the need for parking. You would walk a bit more (like five minutes), to a bus stop and be picked up by a car. Much healthier and probably causes less congestion too. Within city's and residential areas you can have nice bike and walking paths and more room for nature.

acd 4y ago
Car company combined with out of city center parking company combined with bus / electric rental bikes. This is a much more modern city design pattern!
speedgoose 4y ago
It needs to be convenient. I personally don’t want to bike or walk 5 minutes in the snow with my toddler and bags before driving every time. I used to bike or walk to a carpool car quite a few times. But I was driving back home to pick my family and bags.
xputer 4y ago
Yes, luckily it seems cities are slowly starting to realize that allowing cars everywhere and infinitely widening roads is not scalable and, more importantly, does not create a pleasant environment for people to be outside in. The future is definitely creating more walkable/cyclable cities and improving public transit. Self driving cars have the potential to make things even worse by generating new car trips that otherwise wouldn't have been made.

perlgeek 4y ago

About 4 months ago I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29520685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29520685 > I'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. I've gotten an even newer Mercedes since then (A250e, build finished 2022-03), and it's really impressive. The lane assistant no longer makes a mess in construction areas. It has adaptive cruise control, which works REALLY well, and I'd be comfortable relying on that on the highway, for example. It's sometimes breaks when I wouldn't, in dense traffic when I'm approaching an obstruction that I will drive around later. It has an enhanced lane assistant which does small corrections much earlier than the regular lane assistant, which I found annoying and switched off. It has sensors to the side and back to be aware of approaching cars when switching lanes. Long trips have become much more less stressful with that, and I can totally believe that this is on a good way towards level 3 self-driving. (This doesn't include the self-driving package, it's "just" what you get when you pay for the regular security/assistance tech).

ricardobayes 4y ago

This is the only way to roll out a product unless you're a die-hard technologist who believes in 'death by marketing'.

chiph 4y ago

I'll consider using a self-driving system when it can safely drive the length of the Tail of the Dragon without using preloaded data for it (that would be cheating). The dragon has good pavement, clear markings, the occasional driveway, and 318 curves in 11 miles (18km). In this video from December 2021, the Model 3 crosses the yellow line repeatedly into the oncoming lane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4yMGbRa4Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4yMGbRa4Q (long video)

sytelus 4y ago

I wonder if this is in-house development or are they just riding on NVidia stack? Traditional car companies don’t have culture in place to create necessary AI infrastructure and attract the talent pool.

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