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Earlier this year when Mercedes announced its Level 3 "Drive Pilot" system [0], a lot of Tesla stans mocked its limitations, which to be honest, are quite numer

by danso 4y ago

Earlier this year when Mercedes announced its Level 3 "Drive Pilot" system [0], a lot of Tesla stans mocked its limitations, which to be honest, are quite numerous on the face of it: - Only allowed on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems - Limited to a top speed of less than 40 mph - Operates only during the daytime and in clear weather But the big promise from Mercedes is that it would take legal liability for any accidents that occurs during Drive Pilot's operation, something that Tesla doesn't appear to be even thinking about wrt Autopilot and FSD. I would love someone to goad/challenge Tesla to step up to Mercedes. If FSD is so much better than Drive Pilot, then why doesn't Tesla agree to provide a "safe mode" for FSD, that operates with the exact same restrictions as Mercedes' D-P, and offers the same legal protections to any users who happen to get into accidents during "safe mode" FSD operation? [0] https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a39481699/what-happens-if-mercedes-drivepilot-causes-a-crash/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a39481699/what-happens-if-...

lolinder 4y ago
Yep. Mercedes has these limitations not because their tech is less capable than Tesla's but because Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain. Tesla, in contrast, is a software company that is trying to take "move fast and break things" into the two-ton 75mph vehicle space, with predictable results.
- revnode 4y ago
  So Mercedes' solution is to offer a product that isn't usable? Why bother releasing it?
  - ahakki 4y ago
    With it's current limitations, the only application for Mercedes' solution I can think of is during heavy traffic on highways. But calling it "not usable" does seem a bit harsh. Of course if you prefer, move fast and brake... maybe
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Traffic on highways is also by far the most frustrating part of driving basically for the same reasons it’s an easy-ish target for automation, so seems like a pretty good place to start. IMO that’s just good product strategy.
  - lolinder 4y ago
    It's perfectly usable in its intended scope: it allows you to focus on other things while driving in heavy traffic. When they're confident that they can do so safely, they'll extend it to other situations. Mercedes explains the purpose in their press release: > Conditionally automated driving on suitable motorway sections where traffic density is high > During the conditionally automated journey, DRIVE PILOT allows the driver to take their mind off the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities, be it communicating with colleagues via In-Car Office, surfing the internet or relaxing while watching a film. In DRIVE PILOT mode, applications can be enabled on the vehicle's integrated central display that are otherwise blocked while driving. https://group-media.mercedes-benz.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/Mercedes-Benz-receives-worlds-first-internationally-valid-system-approval-for-conditionally-automated-driving.xhtml https://group-media.mercedes-benz.com/marsMediaSite/en/insta...
    - BuildTheRobots 4y ago
      How heavy does the traffic need to be, I wonder? Based on that I'm assuming it's following other vehicles rather than following the road, which does make me wonder what happens when you get a clump of DRIVE PILOT vehicles which are all trying to follow each other. Edit: It seems like it needs a vehicle ahead and under 60kph and uses a mix of other vehicles and road markings. It seems quite usable (but I still have to wonder how many vehicles you can get to follow each other in a chain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yiPaKfKLZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yiPaKfKLZs
  - binarymax 4y ago
    It’s useable in certain situations that have a high probability of safety, and allows them to capture data and grow the program safely over time.
  - vanilla_nut 4y ago
    Tesla's solution offers a product that occasionally tries to kill you and people around you. The only reason it doesn't is because drivers are forced to pay attention and take over at a moment's notice at all times. Mercedes' solution is a car company taking actual responsibility for their software. If they feel the lawsuits/insurance claims/legal snafus are worth the risk, that means their software is probably pretty damn good in that limited scope. Otherwise they could literally bankrupt the company with lawsuits! That's a lot more confidence inspiring to me than Elon's repeated pie-in-the-sky claims.
  - newaccount74 4y ago
    When I commuted in the city, there was a traffic jam almost every day, and I'd be stuck 15-20 minutes driving at walking speed. On especially bad days it could be up to 45min. If I could have read my emails in that time it would have been really nice.
    - pantalaimon 4y ago
      The proper solution to this is trains
      - philippejara 4y ago
        everyone knows that public transport is the solution to it but I can't buy a railroad track and a train to take to work so people are going to do what they can do
        Zagill 4y ago
        You can't personally buy a railroad but you can vote for people who will apply your tax dollars towards it instead of oil subsidies and auto bailouts :)
        philippejara 4y ago
        let's not turn this into a chain of saying obvious things that everyone involved already knows about, it's not going to add to the conversation and -hopefully- nor will it give you internet points in this website.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    It's the other way around. Tesla is selling an extremely expensive beta test that you can't use at all anywhere in any conditions with any kind of safety expectations. Mercedes is selling a product that has a small set of well-defined cases where it can actually be used.
- _the_inflator 4y ago
  Tesla's mockery during the bull market is finally coming to an end. Being cocky and funny without delivering great results is simply embarrassing. I think Mercedes and other automakers have a good chance to bypass Tesla now since Elno is captivated by his Twitter acquisition.
  - rnk 4y ago
    I think you mean to say Elmo
    - klipt 4y ago
      Come now, Elmo and Elon may both be childish Muppets, but Elmo at least has the excuse of actually being a child in an educational kids show.
  - jethro_tell 4y ago
    IDK, it seems like the people doing the work might have a better grasp on delivering for tesla than musk. I don't imagine tweeting promises that the engineers know they can't keep is that useful.
  - bnjms 4y ago
    > I think Mercedes and other automakers have a good chance to bypass Tesla now since Elno is captivated by his Twitter acquisition. I’ve been disappointed in Elon for some time and feel society may have already taken him for all of his good ideas. So I’d bet the opposite. This is a chance for Tesla to recover and match the established auto makers. And the only chance they’ll get.
    - snotrockets 4y ago
      So far, Tesla has been incapable of stepping up to be a major car manufacturer. There are many small car manufacturers, some build exquisite cars that are technological and design marvels, but what Ford realized early, and Nagoya perfected (just consider how many modern op practices originated there!) is that it's not about the machine, but about the infrastructure. This is both pre-sale, where you have to build a lean, mean, fast pipeline from vendors to assembly, and post-sales, where you have to have service infrastructure that spans continents, if not the world. Tesla so far shows very little signs of being able to do either. And just like Whitley failed and ended up being bought by Mumbai, my personal bet (caveat lector!) is that Tesla-the-brand might survive, but Tesla-the-car-manufacturer would end up a subsidiary of a Chinese car manufacturer, who has the car manufacturing chops, but can't build a brand.
- traceroute66 4y ago
  > Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain. Not only that, but they have a quality reputation to uphold with their domestic (German) and regional (European) market. Your average discerning German car buyer (i.e. the sort who has a Porsche 911, or a higher-end Audi/BMW/Merc) in their garage will swiftly tell you about numerous problems with the Tesla before they've even sat in it. Panel gaps, for example. They mean a lot to your average discerning German, and your average Tesla has them by the bucket load. In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-)
  - sho_hn 4y ago
    > In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-) Speaking more seriously on that front, there's been the acquihire of Grohmann Engineering.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps Not a Tesla owner or fan but I have a question that's really bugging me now: Which customers really care about panel gaps? Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"? When has the panel gap became "the benchmark" indicative of car quality beyond the body shell? Like, if the panel gaps are the only thing you can find wrong in a car, then it must be a really really good car, right? Is there any proven evidence that the panel gaps corelate to quality and reliability of the rest of the car, or is it just a myth of the car enthusiasts community that got spread around and went too far? I get it, some Tesla are unreliable and built poorly, but it's not because they have big panel gaps. The reverse is also true for many cars, so this isn't a rule. Sure, if you want to measure and compare panel gaps, then by all means go ahead and measure panel gaps, but please don't pretend they mean anything more than that, and that it's somehow an indicative for the car's overall quality and reliability, because so far there hasn't been any proof of this correlation.
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  > Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain Totally agree with all your points against Tesla, but “gold-standard reputation” for Mercedes? Based on what? They are consistently rated as one of the worse brands reliability wise (Tesla usually being worse, but still).
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    "Nothing's more expensive than a cheap Mercedes." Because they have a reputation of breaking down a lot, and a "cheap" Mercedes is still a Mercedes which is fixed using Mercedes-priced parts.
    - SoftTalker 4y ago
      It's interesting. I only buy older used cars. Mercedes is a brand I have owned a couple of times. Outside of a few specific engines and models, they are mechanically very reliable and very solidly built. Moreover, especially the older cars, are quite easy to work on for a home mechanic. Parts are readily available and are not really more expensive than for any other car I've owned, which includes several other German as well as Japanese and American brands. If you are in that market, and stick with the older models that are proven to be reliable, they are pretty safe buys. Like any used car, a lot depends on the care given by the prior owner, but people who buy Mercedes cars new tend to have at least above-average income, and can afford to maintain them properly.
      - jacquesm 4y ago
        I've put well over a million km on Mercedes vehicles and not a single breakdown. That's anecdata, but compared with the other vehicles I've driven whose brands I will not mention their record for me at least has been outstanding. That said: the newer generation is not for me, I had a C-class with automatic emergency breaking try to murder me twice and I've sold it and gotten something much older without that kind of accessory.
        4y ago
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  The difference between breaking Firefox nightly and writing software for a nuclear power plant.
- areoform 4y ago
  I feel that casting TSLA as a company without “real engineers” isn’t helpful nor is it truthful.
  - lolinder 4y ago
    For me, the measure of whether an engineer counts as "real" is if they're empowered to say no. You can have hundreds of qualified people who are called "engineers" and would be excellent in another environment, but if the culture is "If I say jump, you ask how high" you don't have an engineering culture, you have an autocracy.
- haberman 4y ago
  Agree. Which makes it all the more frustrating that popular press focuses on irrelevant distractions, like the fact that if you try really hard, you can defeat the protections designed to ensure that the driver is ready to take over: https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engineers-show-tesla-will-drive-with-no-one-in-drivers-seat/ https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engine... A car is never going to prevent a determined individual from doing stupid things. But it is a big problem that people who are trying to be responsible are misled about what Tesla's "Full Self Driving" can actually deliver.
- misiti3780 4y ago
  Tesla isnt a real car company? Please climb back under your rock.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Yeah its not like Mercedes cheated the world on emission and with that killed many more people then Tesla Autopilot ever will. And Mercedes simply does not have the ability to produce something like FSD Beta from Tesla no matter how 'real' their engineers are.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    Mercedes already produced something better than the FSD beta: Actual L3.
gzer0 4y ago
Here is the full list of restrictions for the Drive Pilot legal liabities to take effect: Roads need to be premapped ahead of time with LiDAR Roads need to be pre-approved Car cannot go above 37 MPH limited-access divided highways with no stoplights no roundabouts no traffic control systems whatsoever no construction zones only operate during daytime Reasonably clear weather Without overhead obstructions It is actually illegal to be going that slow on a highway, in Texas at least. This would simply be too dangerous to even allow. Let me know of any other system that is even remotely close to being able to do the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFAlwAawSvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFAlwAawSvU
- gnicholas 4y ago
  So it works on freeways when there's congestion, and the speed of traffic is < 37 MPH? Sounds like adaptive cruise control with lane keep (and insurance coverage, which isn't nothing).
  - macspoofing 4y ago
    >Sounds like adaptive cruise control with lane keep (and insurance coverage, which isn't nothing). Without the restriction that hands are on-wheel and driver is paying attention to the road. That's a BIG difference.
- lolinder 4y ago
  People have mentioned this in other sub-threads, but it's explicitly intended for stop-and-go traffic jams: > Mercedez-Benz has announced approval of their “Drive Pilot” system, in Germany, which does fully autonomous operation in highway traffic jam situations. > ... > The Mercedes car provides the traffic jam assist function — only on German motorways to start — below 60 km/h. While people debate whether they want to drive their car or not, nobody likes driving in a traffic jam, and everybody hates the time wasted in them. As a luxury feature, this will let drivers make more productive use of that time. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/12/13/mercedes-gets-approval-for-traffic-jam-pilot-where-is-tesla/?sh=ae96a6b5fc8e https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/12/13/merced...
r053bud 4y ago
40 MPH is absolutely too slow for a highway, dangerous even. Is this for surface roads?
- gnicholas 4y ago
  > limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems Yeah I don't understand where exactly this would be usable, at least around where I live. If it's a divided highway, it would have to have stoplights. Are there places where divided highways have stop signs?
  - kingnothing 4y ago
    It's intended for use on interstates and highways during stop and go traffic jams.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      So it's basically adaptive cruise control with lane keeping? I guess they don't have to worry about turns that are too sharp (which an be troubling for lane-keep systems) because they're limiting it to freeways that are meant to be driven at 70 MPH, but only when the speed of traffic is half that.
      - Linosaurus 4y ago
        They are also trying to convince regulators that they, not you, are legally responsible for any incidents. As long as you are ready to take over with a ten second warning.
  - gen220 4y ago
    My guess is that it's intended to be used in the entire State of Connecticut, between the hours of 8AM and 10AM and 4PM and 6PM. i.e. situations where the highway is doing its best impression of a Dunkin' Drive-Thru. Signed, slightly-jaded person who drives the Boston<>NYC track enough to be slightly-jaded. --- Or, Wareham -> Barnstable on Cape Cod, on any weekend morning for 6 months out of the year. Or 101 in the CA Bay Area during rush hour. Basically, any time+place where the the thought of driving elicits an audible moan from the people then and there.
drstewart 4y ago
But can Mercedes definitively prove their technology will never result in an accident, like people in this thread are demanding of Tesla?
- lolinder 4y ago
  They're willing to take liability for it, so they're confident enough that their legal team and accountants are satisfied. If Tesla were at that point I think most people here would be content, no need to definitively prove anything.
  - drstewart 4y ago
    Ah yes, all's I have to do to get justice if I get killed by a Mercedes run amok is to take on a multi-billion dollar legal team. That makes me confident.
    - hedora 4y ago
      Well, if you have life insurance, your insurance company will be the ones suing Mercedes, and likely have an even scarier legal team.
      - tiahura 4y ago
        There’s no subrogation for life insurance.
    - Mordisquitos 4y ago
      The fact that they accept liability is precisely to avoid [your next of kin] needing to "take on a multi-billion dollar legal team" if you get killed by a Mercedes run amok. Now then, if on the other hand you were to get killed by a Tesla run amok...
    - jonfw 4y ago
      A big company being responsible for a crash is best case scenario. You would much rather sue Mercedes than Joe Shmoe for an accident, no doubt. They've got deep pockets, and your local courts are not particularly friendly to them
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dheera 4y ago
I really wish they would cut this "Level" nonsense, that system was invented by business people, not engineers. Interventions are more nuisanced than just "Did the driver intervene". Many times I intervene and take control while using Tesla FSD not out of safety reasons, but to be nice to other drivers, or for a smoother ride. It tends to love passing other cars on the right and not letting cars into merges, for example. It also brake a little hard at traffic jams, for instance, not nearly to a point where it would be a safety issue, but when I see a traffic jam far ahead I would begin decelerating much, much earlier just for the comfort of myself and passengers. That said, FSD is nowhere near ready, I do have a huge number of safety related interventions as well, but reducing this to a number like L3 or L4 is trying to oversimplify a problem that isn't simple.
- vel0city 4y ago
  ADAS Levels were standardized by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Are you saying the Society of Automotive Engineers are all just business people and not engineers?
- dilznoofus 4y ago
  > It tends to love passing other cars on the right Is it supposed to do illegal things? It shouldn't be so hard to ensure it obeys laws.
  - dheera 4y ago
    I imagined it shouldn't, but it absolutely LOVES passing on the right. Both AP and FSD
Fricken 4y ago
I'd been saying for years before anyone had L3 out that the working definition of L3 is simply that the manufacturer will assume liability while the vehicle is in charge.
pkaye 4y ago
> But there's one key difference: Once you engage Drive Pilot, you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages. What if they disengage right before an accident in order to transfer the liability to you?
- bastawhiz 4y ago
  If the car knows that it's about to be in an unavoidable accident and it is at fault, it has acknowledged that it has fucked up. To think that Mercedes wouldn't find itself in an expensive legal battle the first time that this happens would be ridiculous. But I would expect that the disengagement is much less abrupt than what Autopilot/FSD do. From [0]: > After consulting with the engineer in the passenger seat, I closed my eyes completely, and just eight or nine seconds later a prompt popped up asking me to confirm I was still alert. I ignored it, which soon started the 10-second countdown toward disengagement. Which makes sense: if the point of the system is for you to be able to turn around and help your kids for a few seconds or watch a TV show on the center console, they simply can't expect that they can ding and have you regain control instantly. [0] https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1136914_mercedes-drive-pilot-test-drive-review https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1136914_mercedes-drive-p...
- froh 4y ago
  they don't. the Mercedes drives on for at least ten seconds until you take over in that traffic jam on highway scenario, under all circumstances.
andreyk 4y ago
I've been testing FSD, and I WISH their system did more to limit its use in bad conditions. The perception (based on dashboard visualization) is much worse during rain, yes Tesla lets you keep using FSD even in heavy rain.
esalman 4y ago
> But the big promise from Mercedes is that it would take legal liability for any accidents that occurs during Drive Pilot's operation I am a FSD skeptic but I might be sold on this.
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clashmoore 4y ago
Tesla was found to be deactivating the autopilot mode at the second before a crash [0]. I think it's for a dubious reason so that Tesla could declare none of their cars were in autopilot/FSD mode when involved in a crash. [0] PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INOA-EA22002-3184.PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INOA-EA22002-3184.PDF "The agency’s analysis of these sixteen subject first responder and road maintenance vehicle crashes indicated that Forward Collision Warnings (FCW) activated in the majority of incidents immediately prior to impact and that subsequent Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) intervened in approximately half of the collisions. On average in these crashes, Autopilot aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact."
- agumonkey 4y ago
  I fail to understand how would anyone at the top of any serious company would think bailing out at the last second would absolve them of anything.
  - Havoc 4y ago
    Not intended to absolve them legally but likely rather to create grey area for public announcements.
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      at best the only value I'd see is the ability to have newspaper write "tesla SDV wasn't on when crash happened".. actually a good amount of PR leverage I admit
  - phatfish 4y ago
    The CEO of Tesla seems to think it does. He tried to bail on the Twitter acquisition at the last second. Didn't work out well obviously. Pretty sure he has the exact same attitude to the liabilities involving people getting killed by using his "Full Self Driving" beta test.
  - pms 4y ago
    It's for PR, so that they can publicly release statistics showing good results on paper. An average consumer will learn the good-looking statistics and spread the word about Tesla safety, as it already happens, without taking the above report into account, since it's buried underneath tens of comments and I imagine Tesla will also fight it in some ways. Then, the average consumer will believe that FSD is indeed safer than a human driver, and buy the system. If crash happens, Tesla doesn't provide legal liability. I imagine most cases will be closed and, overall, Tesla will be at a profit, so why not do it?
davidkuennen 4y ago
It's actually 80 mph in Germany now [0], which makes this such a great and useful feature. It really feels like the future. [0] https://www.therobotreport.com/un-allows-autonomous-vehicles-to-drive-up-to-130-km-h/ https://www.therobotreport.com/un-allows-autonomous-vehicles...
Geee 4y ago
This 'level 3' is just a very cheap marketing trick. The system is a very simple highway traffic jam assistant. This trick plays with the misconception that ADAS levels actually determine how advanced the system is. They get to claim 'level 3' with a very simple system by assuming liability in those conditions. It's just marketing, and has nothing to do with actual capabilities of the system.
- mosseater 4y ago
  I mean personally the company assuming liability means A LOT more to me than how much the system can do. It's one thing to say your system can drive down a slick and curvy mountain road, and another thing to say you'll cover all liability if the car drives itself off the mountain. It's easy to write software the runs most of the time. This is our lives that we're talking about.
  - Sakos 4y ago
    Feels like the people here saying that Mercedes assuming liability doesn't matter are the same people who say it's your own fault if you lose your job and your healthcare and become poor.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - quonn 4y ago
    Being liable still just means that it works most of the time and that they computed the cost of when it doesn‘t just like any insurance company. That‘s all there is to it.
  - Geee 4y ago
    Liability is meaningless if it's limited to extremely low risk situations. Assuming liability in high risk conditions would be a big deal. Otherwise, its purpose is just to get mindshare for their 'level 3' tech, which in fact is just a self-driving starter project downloaded from Github.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Only allowed on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems > Limited to a top speed of less than 40 mph > Operates only during the daytime and in clear weather Wait, don’t these things together mean it isn’t useful anywhere? Limited access roadways tend to be 50+ limits, going 40 or less on them other than in the adverse conditions ruled out by the third criterion would probably get you pulled over for obstructing traffic, unless you had Slow Moving Vehicle placards.

by danso 4y ago

lolinder 4y ago

Yep. Mercedes has these limitations not because their tech is less capable than Tesla's but because Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain. Tesla, in contrast, is a software company that is trying to take "move fast and break things" into the two-ton 75mph vehicle space, with predictable results.

revnode 4y ago
So Mercedes' solution is to offer a product that isn't usable? Why bother releasing it?
- ahakki 4y ago
  With it's current limitations, the only application for Mercedes' solution I can think of is during heavy traffic on highways. But calling it "not usable" does seem a bit harsh. Of course if you prefer, move fast and brake... maybe
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Traffic on highways is also by far the most frustrating part of driving basically for the same reasons it’s an easy-ish target for automation, so seems like a pretty good place to start. IMO that’s just good product strategy.
- lolinder 4y ago
  It's perfectly usable in its intended scope: it allows you to focus on other things while driving in heavy traffic. When they're confident that they can do so safely, they'll extend it to other situations. Mercedes explains the purpose in their press release: > Conditionally automated driving on suitable motorway sections where traffic density is high > During the conditionally automated journey, DRIVE PILOT allows the driver to take their mind off the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities, be it communicating with colleagues via In-Car Office, surfing the internet or relaxing while watching a film. In DRIVE PILOT mode, applications can be enabled on the vehicle's integrated central display that are otherwise blocked while driving. https://group-media.mercedes-benz.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/ko/Mercedes-Benz-receives-worlds-first-internationally-valid-system-approval-for-conditionally-automated-driving.xhtml https://group-media.mercedes-benz.com/marsMediaSite/en/insta...
  - BuildTheRobots 4y ago
    How heavy does the traffic need to be, I wonder? Based on that I'm assuming it's following other vehicles rather than following the road, which does make me wonder what happens when you get a clump of DRIVE PILOT vehicles which are all trying to follow each other. Edit: It seems like it needs a vehicle ahead and under 60kph and uses a mix of other vehicles and road markings. It seems quite usable (but I still have to wonder how many vehicles you can get to follow each other in a chain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yiPaKfKLZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yiPaKfKLZs
- binarymax 4y ago
  It’s useable in certain situations that have a high probability of safety, and allows them to capture data and grow the program safely over time.
- vanilla_nut 4y ago
  Tesla's solution offers a product that occasionally tries to kill you and people around you. The only reason it doesn't is because drivers are forced to pay attention and take over at a moment's notice at all times. Mercedes' solution is a car company taking actual responsibility for their software. If they feel the lawsuits/insurance claims/legal snafus are worth the risk, that means their software is probably pretty damn good in that limited scope. Otherwise they could literally bankrupt the company with lawsuits! That's a lot more confidence inspiring to me than Elon's repeated pie-in-the-sky claims.
- newaccount74 4y ago
  When I commuted in the city, there was a traffic jam almost every day, and I'd be stuck 15-20 minutes driving at walking speed. On especially bad days it could be up to 45min. If I could have read my emails in that time it would have been really nice.
  - pantalaimon 4y ago
    The proper solution to this is trains
    - philippejara 4y ago
      everyone knows that public transport is the solution to it but I can't buy a railroad track and a train to take to work so people are going to do what they can do
      - Zagill 4y ago
        You can't personally buy a railroad but you can vote for people who will apply your tax dollars towards it instead of oil subsidies and auto bailouts :)
        philippejara 4y ago
        let's not turn this into a chain of saying obvious things that everyone involved already knows about, it's not going to add to the conversation and -hopefully- nor will it give you internet points in this website.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  It's the other way around. Tesla is selling an extremely expensive beta test that you can't use at all anywhere in any conditions with any kind of safety expectations. Mercedes is selling a product that has a small set of well-defined cases where it can actually be used.
_the_inflator 4y ago
Tesla's mockery during the bull market is finally coming to an end. Being cocky and funny without delivering great results is simply embarrassing. I think Mercedes and other automakers have a good chance to bypass Tesla now since Elno is captivated by his Twitter acquisition.
- rnk 4y ago
  I think you mean to say Elmo
  - klipt 4y ago
    Come now, Elmo and Elon may both be childish Muppets, but Elmo at least has the excuse of actually being a child in an educational kids show.
- jethro_tell 4y ago
  IDK, it seems like the people doing the work might have a better grasp on delivering for tesla than musk. I don't imagine tweeting promises that the engineers know they can't keep is that useful.
- bnjms 4y ago
  > I think Mercedes and other automakers have a good chance to bypass Tesla now since Elno is captivated by his Twitter acquisition. I’ve been disappointed in Elon for some time and feel society may have already taken him for all of his good ideas. So I’d bet the opposite. This is a chance for Tesla to recover and match the established auto makers. And the only chance they’ll get.
  - snotrockets 4y ago
    So far, Tesla has been incapable of stepping up to be a major car manufacturer. There are many small car manufacturers, some build exquisite cars that are technological and design marvels, but what Ford realized early, and Nagoya perfected (just consider how many modern op practices originated there!) is that it's not about the machine, but about the infrastructure. This is both pre-sale, where you have to build a lean, mean, fast pipeline from vendors to assembly, and post-sales, where you have to have service infrastructure that spans continents, if not the world. Tesla so far shows very little signs of being able to do either. And just like Whitley failed and ended up being bought by Mumbai, my personal bet (caveat lector!) is that Tesla-the-brand might survive, but Tesla-the-car-manufacturer would end up a subsidiary of a Chinese car manufacturer, who has the car manufacturing chops, but can't build a brand.
traceroute66 4y ago
> Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain. Not only that, but they have a quality reputation to uphold with their domestic (German) and regional (European) market. Your average discerning German car buyer (i.e. the sort who has a Porsche 911, or a higher-end Audi/BMW/Merc) in their garage will swiftly tell you about numerous problems with the Tesla before they've even sat in it. Panel gaps, for example. They mean a lot to your average discerning German, and your average Tesla has them by the bucket load. In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-)
- sho_hn 4y ago
  > In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-) Speaking more seriously on that front, there's been the acquihire of Grohmann Engineering.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps Not a Tesla owner or fan but I have a question that's really bugging me now: Which customers really care about panel gaps? Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"? When has the panel gap became "the benchmark" indicative of car quality beyond the body shell? Like, if the panel gaps are the only thing you can find wrong in a car, then it must be a really really good car, right? Is there any proven evidence that the panel gaps corelate to quality and reliability of the rest of the car, or is it just a myth of the car enthusiasts community that got spread around and went too far? I get it, some Tesla are unreliable and built poorly, but it's not because they have big panel gaps. The reverse is also true for many cars, so this isn't a rule. Sure, if you want to measure and compare panel gaps, then by all means go ahead and measure panel gaps, but please don't pretend they mean anything more than that, and that it's somehow an indicative for the car's overall quality and reliability, because so far there hasn't been any proof of this correlation.
jsjohnst 4y ago
> Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain Totally agree with all your points against Tesla, but “gold-standard reputation” for Mercedes? Based on what? They are consistently rated as one of the worse brands reliability wise (Tesla usually being worse, but still).
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  "Nothing's more expensive than a cheap Mercedes." Because they have a reputation of breaking down a lot, and a "cheap" Mercedes is still a Mercedes which is fixed using Mercedes-priced parts.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    It's interesting. I only buy older used cars. Mercedes is a brand I have owned a couple of times. Outside of a few specific engines and models, they are mechanically very reliable and very solidly built. Moreover, especially the older cars, are quite easy to work on for a home mechanic. Parts are readily available and are not really more expensive than for any other car I've owned, which includes several other German as well as Japanese and American brands. If you are in that market, and stick with the older models that are proven to be reliable, they are pretty safe buys. Like any used car, a lot depends on the care given by the prior owner, but people who buy Mercedes cars new tend to have at least above-average income, and can afford to maintain them properly.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      I've put well over a million km on Mercedes vehicles and not a single breakdown. That's anecdata, but compared with the other vehicles I've driven whose brands I will not mention their record for me at least has been outstanding. That said: the newer generation is not for me, I had a C-class with automatic emergency breaking try to murder me twice and I've sold it and gotten something much older without that kind of accessory.
      - 4y ago
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
The difference between breaking Firefox nightly and writing software for a nuclear power plant.
areoform 4y ago
I feel that casting TSLA as a company without “real engineers” isn’t helpful nor is it truthful.
- lolinder 4y ago
  For me, the measure of whether an engineer counts as "real" is if they're empowered to say no. You can have hundreds of qualified people who are called "engineers" and would be excellent in another environment, but if the culture is "If I say jump, you ask how high" you don't have an engineering culture, you have an autocracy.
haberman 4y ago
Agree. Which makes it all the more frustrating that popular press focuses on irrelevant distractions, like the fact that if you try really hard, you can defeat the protections designed to ensure that the driver is ready to take over: https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engineers-show-tesla-will-drive-with-no-one-in-drivers-seat/ https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engine... A car is never going to prevent a determined individual from doing stupid things. But it is a big problem that people who are trying to be responsible are misled about what Tesla's "Full Self Driving" can actually deliver.
misiti3780 4y ago
Tesla isnt a real car company? Please climb back under your rock.
panick21_ 4y ago
Yeah its not like Mercedes cheated the world on emission and with that killed many more people then Tesla Autopilot ever will. And Mercedes simply does not have the ability to produce something like FSD Beta from Tesla no matter how 'real' their engineers are.
- malermeister 4y ago
  Mercedes already produced something better than the FSD beta: Actual L3.

gzer0 4y ago

Here is the full list of restrictions for the Drive Pilot legal liabities to take effect: Roads need to be premapped ahead of time with LiDAR Roads need to be pre-approved Car cannot go above 37 MPH limited-access divided highways with no stoplights no roundabouts no traffic control systems whatsoever no construction zones only operate during daytime Reasonably clear weather Without overhead obstructions It is actually illegal to be going that slow on a highway, in Texas at least. This would simply be too dangerous to even allow. Let me know of any other system that is even remotely close to being able to do the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFAlwAawSvU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFAlwAawSvU

gnicholas 4y ago
So it works on freeways when there's congestion, and the speed of traffic is < 37 MPH? Sounds like adaptive cruise control with lane keep (and insurance coverage, which isn't nothing).
- macspoofing 4y ago
  >Sounds like adaptive cruise control with lane keep (and insurance coverage, which isn't nothing). Without the restriction that hands are on-wheel and driver is paying attention to the road. That's a BIG difference.
lolinder 4y ago
People have mentioned this in other sub-threads, but it's explicitly intended for stop-and-go traffic jams: > Mercedez-Benz has announced approval of their “Drive Pilot” system, in Germany, which does fully autonomous operation in highway traffic jam situations. > ... > The Mercedes car provides the traffic jam assist function — only on German motorways to start — below 60 km/h. While people debate whether they want to drive their car or not, nobody likes driving in a traffic jam, and everybody hates the time wasted in them. As a luxury feature, this will let drivers make more productive use of that time. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/12/13/mercedes-gets-approval-for-traffic-jam-pilot-where-is-tesla/?sh=ae96a6b5fc8e https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/12/13/merced...

r053bud 4y ago

40 MPH is absolutely too slow for a highway, dangerous even. Is this for surface roads?

gnicholas 4y ago
> limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems Yeah I don't understand where exactly this would be usable, at least around where I live. If it's a divided highway, it would have to have stoplights. Are there places where divided highways have stop signs?
- kingnothing 4y ago
  It's intended for use on interstates and highways during stop and go traffic jams.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    So it's basically adaptive cruise control with lane keeping? I guess they don't have to worry about turns that are too sharp (which an be troubling for lane-keep systems) because they're limiting it to freeways that are meant to be driven at 70 MPH, but only when the speed of traffic is half that.
    - Linosaurus 4y ago
      They are also trying to convince regulators that they, not you, are legally responsible for any incidents. As long as you are ready to take over with a ten second warning.
- gen220 4y ago
  My guess is that it's intended to be used in the entire State of Connecticut, between the hours of 8AM and 10AM and 4PM and 6PM. i.e. situations where the highway is doing its best impression of a Dunkin' Drive-Thru. Signed, slightly-jaded person who drives the Boston<>NYC track enough to be slightly-jaded. --- Or, Wareham -> Barnstable on Cape Cod, on any weekend morning for 6 months out of the year. Or 101 in the CA Bay Area during rush hour. Basically, any time+place where the the thought of driving elicits an audible moan from the people then and there.

drstewart 4y ago

But can Mercedes definitively prove their technology will never result in an accident, like people in this thread are demanding of Tesla?

lolinder 4y ago
They're willing to take liability for it, so they're confident enough that their legal team and accountants are satisfied. If Tesla were at that point I think most people here would be content, no need to definitively prove anything.
- drstewart 4y ago
  Ah yes, all's I have to do to get justice if I get killed by a Mercedes run amok is to take on a multi-billion dollar legal team. That makes me confident.
  - hedora 4y ago
    Well, if you have life insurance, your insurance company will be the ones suing Mercedes, and likely have an even scarier legal team.
    - tiahura 4y ago
      There’s no subrogation for life insurance.
  - Mordisquitos 4y ago
    The fact that they accept liability is precisely to avoid [your next of kin] needing to "take on a multi-billion dollar legal team" if you get killed by a Mercedes run amok. Now then, if on the other hand you were to get killed by a Tesla run amok...
  - jonfw 4y ago
    A big company being responsible for a crash is best case scenario. You would much rather sue Mercedes than Joe Shmoe for an accident, no doubt. They've got deep pockets, and your local courts are not particularly friendly to them

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dheera 4y ago

I really wish they would cut this "Level" nonsense, that system was invented by business people, not engineers. Interventions are more nuisanced than just "Did the driver intervene". Many times I intervene and take control while using Tesla FSD not out of safety reasons, but to be nice to other drivers, or for a smoother ride. It tends to love passing other cars on the right and not letting cars into merges, for example. It also brake a little hard at traffic jams, for instance, not nearly to a point where it would be a safety issue, but when I see a traffic jam far ahead I would begin decelerating much, much earlier just for the comfort of myself and passengers. That said, FSD is nowhere near ready, I do have a huge number of safety related interventions as well, but reducing this to a number like L3 or L4 is trying to oversimplify a problem that isn't simple.

vel0city 4y ago
ADAS Levels were standardized by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Are you saying the Society of Automotive Engineers are all just business people and not engineers?
dilznoofus 4y ago
> It tends to love passing other cars on the right Is it supposed to do illegal things? It shouldn't be so hard to ensure it obeys laws.
- dheera 4y ago
  I imagined it shouldn't, but it absolutely LOVES passing on the right. Both AP and FSD

Fricken 4y ago

I'd been saying for years before anyone had L3 out that the working definition of L3 is simply that the manufacturer will assume liability while the vehicle is in charge.

pkaye 4y ago

> But there's one key difference: Once you engage Drive Pilot, you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages. What if they disengage right before an accident in order to transfer the liability to you?

bastawhiz 4y ago
If the car knows that it's about to be in an unavoidable accident and it is at fault, it has acknowledged that it has fucked up. To think that Mercedes wouldn't find itself in an expensive legal battle the first time that this happens would be ridiculous. But I would expect that the disengagement is much less abrupt than what Autopilot/FSD do. From [0]: > After consulting with the engineer in the passenger seat, I closed my eyes completely, and just eight or nine seconds later a prompt popped up asking me to confirm I was still alert. I ignored it, which soon started the 10-second countdown toward disengagement. Which makes sense: if the point of the system is for you to be able to turn around and help your kids for a few seconds or watch a TV show on the center console, they simply can't expect that they can ding and have you regain control instantly. [0] https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1136914_mercedes-drive-pilot-test-drive-review https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1136914_mercedes-drive-p...
froh 4y ago
they don't. the Mercedes drives on for at least ten seconds until you take over in that traffic jam on highway scenario, under all circumstances.

andreyk 4y ago

I've been testing FSD, and I WISH their system did more to limit its use in bad conditions. The perception (based on dashboard visualization) is much worse during rain, yes Tesla lets you keep using FSD even in heavy rain.

esalman 4y ago

> But the big promise from Mercedes is that it would take legal liability for any accidents that occurs during Drive Pilot's operation I am a FSD skeptic but I might be sold on this.

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clashmoore 4y ago

Tesla was found to be deactivating the autopilot mode at the second before a crash [0]. I think it's for a dubious reason so that Tesla could declare none of their cars were in autopilot/FSD mode when involved in a crash. [0] PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INOA-EA22002-3184.PDF https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2022/INOA-EA22002-3184.PDF "The agency’s analysis of these sixteen subject first responder and road maintenance vehicle crashes indicated that Forward Collision Warnings (FCW) activated in the majority of incidents immediately prior to impact and that subsequent Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) intervened in approximately half of the collisions. On average in these crashes, Autopilot aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact."

agumonkey 4y ago
I fail to understand how would anyone at the top of any serious company would think bailing out at the last second would absolve them of anything.
- Havoc 4y ago
  Not intended to absolve them legally but likely rather to create grey area for public announcements.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    at best the only value I'd see is the ability to have newspaper write "tesla SDV wasn't on when crash happened".. actually a good amount of PR leverage I admit
- phatfish 4y ago
  The CEO of Tesla seems to think it does. He tried to bail on the Twitter acquisition at the last second. Didn't work out well obviously. Pretty sure he has the exact same attitude to the liabilities involving people getting killed by using his "Full Self Driving" beta test.
- pms 4y ago
  It's for PR, so that they can publicly release statistics showing good results on paper. An average consumer will learn the good-looking statistics and spread the word about Tesla safety, as it already happens, without taking the above report into account, since it's buried underneath tens of comments and I imagine Tesla will also fight it in some ways. Then, the average consumer will believe that FSD is indeed safer than a human driver, and buy the system. If crash happens, Tesla doesn't provide legal liability. I imagine most cases will be closed and, overall, Tesla will be at a profit, so why not do it?

davidkuennen 4y ago

It's actually 80 mph in Germany now [0], which makes this such a great and useful feature. It really feels like the future. [0] https://www.therobotreport.com/un-allows-autonomous-vehicles-to-drive-up-to-130-km-h/ https://www.therobotreport.com/un-allows-autonomous-vehicles...

Geee 4y ago

This 'level 3' is just a very cheap marketing trick. The system is a very simple highway traffic jam assistant. This trick plays with the misconception that ADAS levels actually determine how advanced the system is. They get to claim 'level 3' with a very simple system by assuming liability in those conditions. It's just marketing, and has nothing to do with actual capabilities of the system.

mosseater 4y ago
I mean personally the company assuming liability means A LOT more to me than how much the system can do. It's one thing to say your system can drive down a slick and curvy mountain road, and another thing to say you'll cover all liability if the car drives itself off the mountain. It's easy to write software the runs most of the time. This is our lives that we're talking about.
- Sakos 4y ago
  Feels like the people here saying that Mercedes assuming liability doesn't matter are the same people who say it's your own fault if you lose your job and your healthcare and become poor.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- quonn 4y ago
  Being liable still just means that it works most of the time and that they computed the cost of when it doesn‘t just like any insurance company. That‘s all there is to it.
- Geee 4y ago
  Liability is meaningless if it's limited to extremely low risk situations. Assuming liability in high risk conditions would be a big deal. Otherwise, its purpose is just to get mindshare for their 'level 3' tech, which in fact is just a self-driving starter project downloaded from Github.

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Only allowed on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems > Limited to a top speed of less than 40 mph > Operates only during the daytime and in clear weather Wait, don’t these things together mean it isn’t useful anywhere? Limited access roadways tend to be 50+ limits, going 40 or less on them other than in the adverse conditions ruled out by the third criterion would probably get you pulled over for obstructing traffic, unless you had Slow Moving Vehicle placards.