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Friendly reminder that this system is HEAVILY limited, with the following restrictions: - Must be under 40 mph - Only during the daylight and only on certa

by gzer0 3y ago

Friendly reminder that this system is HEAVILY limited, with the following restrictions: - Must be under 40 mph - Only during the daylight and only on certain highways - CANNOT be operated on city/country streets - CANNOT be operated in construction zones - CANNOT be during heavy rain or fog or flood roads And for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZSZTKYEU4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZSZTKYEU4 Tesla FSD navigating the complex city streets of LA for 60 minutes with zero human intervention. This seems like a marketing gimmick by Mercedes at best; the two technologies aren't even in the same league. Any comparison is laughable. They are outmatched, outclassed, and absolutely outdone. Karpathy (now @ OpenAI) and the Tesla FSD team have really done an incredible job.

karaterobot 3y ago
Skeptical but genuine question here: if Tesla's Level 3 system is more advanced, why don't they have authorization to release it? And why does the article quote Tesla as saying they only have a level 2 system?
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  They aren’t pursuing it, and stopped publicly reporting disengagement data. They found out their stans are happy to buy the cars and use FSD without liability protection or safety data, so why bother? Whenever one crashes it’s the driver’s fault by definition.
akmarinov 3y ago
In the end, Mercedes assumes liability for its system, where Tesla doesn’t. Tells you all you need to know.
- simondotau 3y ago
  How exactly is Mercedes accepting liability? I mean to say, how does this work in practice? Who absorbs the demerit points if your car is accused of going 40 in a 30 zone?
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > How exactly is Mercedes accepting liability? You’re indemnified.
    - kbos87 3y ago
      Mercedes can’t indemnify you. Local police and prosecutors make those decisions.
      - nradov 3y ago
        Nope. Local police and prosecutors have no authority to make decisions on liability. Their authority is limited to criminal matters. However, police reports can generally be used as evidence in civil trials where judges and juries make decisions about liability. There may be some circumstances where a driver operating a Mercedes-Benz vehicle using Drive Pilot could be committing a criminal offense. For example, I think sitting in the driver's seat while intoxicated would still be illegal even if you're not actually driving. But that is separate from liability.
      - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
        > Mercedes can’t indemnify you. Local police and prosecutors make those decisions Are you thinking of immunity? Indemnity is regularly contracted between private parties. (Also, police can’t give you immunity in America.)
- wilg 3y ago
  Is there evidence for this?
  - DoesntMatter22 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - djcannabiz 3y ago
    https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-responsibility-drive-pilot/ https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res... "once a driver turns on Drive Pilot, they are "no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages." The publication goes so far as to say that a driver could actually pay zero attention to the road ahead, play on their mobile phones, and even watch a movie. If the car were to crash, Mercedes would be 100 percent responsible."
    - wilg 3y ago
      Yes, but is there any evidence this is actually happening? Not that they announced it might a year ago.
      - wilg 3y ago
        Folks, don't downvote me, show me where Mercedes actually says they are taking liability for actual cars that are actually on the road with customers. What people cite on this is a vague marketing puff piece from a year ago. If they are doing it, it should be pretty easy to find out how that is structured from their website or whatever the car owner has signed, or just like literally any evidence whatsoever.
    - dmix 3y ago
      This explains the 40mph and other extreme restrictions
      - froh 3y ago
        for now, that is. in German they call it "traffic jam pilot" Staupilot. they start L3 autonomy with the boring and tedious scenario first. it's obvious they'll expand it to more and more freeway/highway driving scenarios, and from there grow into any out of town driving. meanwhile Waymo and Tesla can take their bruises with downtown traffic and pedestrians and children and hand drawn road signs and dirty signs and poorly placed ones and whichever more crazy real life reality show surprise guests appear on stage... I wouldn't (and I don't think you did but several others in such discussions do) snicker too much on Mercedes. they have a knack on getting a couple of car related things pretty right.
- slg 3y ago
  This doesn't mean the system is actually better. It just means that Mercedes thinks that the cost of covering the liability won't exceed the boost in sales that come from this decision. It reminds me of what an automotive innovator once said[1]: >Here's the way I see it, Ted. Guy puts a fancy guarantee on a box 'cause he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside... Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me. Not that I'm implying Autopilot is necessarily a "quality product" in comparison. It is just that a guarantee or liability coverage is nothing but a marketing expense for the company issuing it. It doesn't actually mean the product is higher quality. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB7WbTTlu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB7WbTTlu4
- jpalomaki 3y ago
  I can understand financial liability, but what if somebody gets seriously hurt and there’s criminal charges? Is there already a legal framework in US for transferring this kind of liabilities from the driver to manufacturer?
- nathanasmith 3y ago
  >Tells you all you need to know. Thanks for the subtle reminder that your statement is most definitely not "all I need to know."
simion314 3y ago
Would you bet your life on a Tesla Twitter promise? They are not even betting one cent on their car safety.
- zaroth 3y ago
  > They are not even betting one cent in their car safety. Do you mean strictly in the sense of accepting liability for crashes while AutoPilot is engaged? Because Tesla makes safety a primary selling point of their vehicles. Objectively Tesla invests hugely in the safety of their vehicles, and scores the absolute highest marks for safety in many government tests. Tesla makes an L2 system where the driver must remain engaged. And part of their FSD system includes the most sophisticated driver gaze and attention tracking system on the market. This has made their FSD system on predominantly non-highway roads safer than the average human driver without FSD.
  - justapassenger 3y ago
    > And part of their FSD system includes the most sophisticated driver gaze and attention tracking system on the market. That’s a just blunt lie. Their driver monitoring system is very deficient. They lack, for example, industry standard of infrared camera that allows you to see through the sunglasses. And all older Model S/X, that have FSD, lack any camera at all.
    - zaroth 3y ago
      You’re right, their older cars don’t have their most advanced system. When I said “on the market” I mean the cars they are selling now, not historically. I’ve found the system extremely adept at gaze tracking and alerting. The cabin camera is infrared in their latest models (at least for the last 2 years). Please don’t call me a liar. I am happy to be called wrong and corrected. I should have said “one of the most advanced” because this is in truth a subjective measure and I don’t think agencies like NHTSA rank and qualify attention tracking?
  - simion314 3y ago
    No, I mean actually bet your life, say put your little children in the back and send them to some destination because you seen Tesla videos on YouTube. if you won\t do it for a randoms destination, on what would you risk your children life, on some white listed high-way? which one?
belter 3y ago
Took me less than a few minutes, to find in the same channel, FSD failing and the human having to intervene. Here it is at the proper time and for a video uploaded 10 hours ago... - https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=995 https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=995 And even worst failures...looking at all these I simply do not believe the videos posted are not edited or a selection of a success out of many failed ones. https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=1252 https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=1252 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=77 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=77 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=196 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=196 Since the video was live on YouTube no editing was done... These videos are only posting the successful events, we need to see them all. That is why probably Tesla is not putting their money where their mouth is.
- zaroth 3y ago
  This is a great example! I hope people will take the time to click and watch it drive. I think it’s a tough call in this case. The Tesla is trying not to block an intersection where a light is green but there’s no room to clear the intersection on the other side due to traffic ahead. In fact an oncoming car is able to turn left in front of the Tesla because it waited. Probably the law is that you should NOT enter the intersection in such a state, but the human nature would be to make a more nuanced judgement of “how bad would it be” to continue thru and possibly get stuck sticking out into the intersection for a bit until traffic moves again. I would think - how long might I be stuck? Would it actual impede other traffic? Also factors like, am I’m late for work? Am I frustrated because traffic has been horrible or am I enjoying a Sunday drive? Ego (Tesla’s name for the driving software) doesn’t get impatient. It can maximally obey all traffic regulations at all times if they code it to do so, even if human drivers behind might be laying on the horn. This little clip really shows how much nuance is involved in designing these systems, and how doing the technically right thing can either be wrong or at least ambiguously right.
  - belter 3y ago
    That is not the failure. The failure is that would not move anymore and the driver had to intervene and accelerate.
Gys 3y ago
Very serious limitation of Tesla: The human has to keep the hands on the wheel at all times and eyes on the road. Edit: I looked at these FSD videos before and am very sure it will not work that well in an average European city. Unfortunately, because I really would love to buy a real self driving car that legally allows me to watch a movie while driving (highways is enough).
croes 3y ago
They are all heavily limited. But FSD isn't even necessary to help, an autonomous acceleration and follow mode for all cars on traffic lights and in traffic jams would already have huge benefits.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rvnx 3y ago
It's very different goals, the Tesla approach is more of a hack, which is to release things, without any liability or guarantee "we quickly hacked this together, good luck, if you die or get injured this is your problem!", and Mercedes is delivering a product that only support a few features but do it well, and they put their responsibility on it.
- dmix 3y ago
  What features does Tesla FSD offer that Mercedes doesn’t?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Liability.
    - dmix 3y ago
      Not sure how that relates to the point OP was making. Unless I misunderstood his point? > Mercedes is delivering a product that only support a few features but do it well This naturally implies that Tesla experimented with a broader set of self-driving features in an throw-it-at-the-wall experimental fashion. Which is more of a technical/product management question than a financial/legal/marketing one. Unless OP simply means Mercedes released the same set of features just extremely restricted in what you can do with them? If so the hacker/experimental vs limited focus on "small set of features" dichotomy is not super relevant. It's just business risk aversion or gov regulatory strategy, not product/technology development strategy.
- lm28469 3y ago
  > "we quickly hacked this together, good luck, if you die or get injured this is your problem!" Or kill someone who didn't ask for any of this
adsfgiodsnrio 3y ago
So, in the absolute best-case scenario cherry-picked from thousands of videos, Tesla's system is capable of going twenty-five miles without making dangerous mistakes. I agree the comparison is laughable.
hristov 3y ago
Even considering its heavy limitations, the Mercedes system is miles better than the Tesla, because it is actually useful. You can actually turn on the system and do your email, or take a nap. Yes, the 40 mph limitation on highways seems to make it useless, but many highways get congested to the point where you are not going over 40 mph anyways, and those are the times when it is most frustrating to drive. And regarding the FSD, most youtube videos I have seen run into human intervention within 20 minutes or so. Going 60 minutes without human intervention is certainly possible if you get a bit lucky but that does not mean you should take your eyes off the road for a second. FSD still has to be constantly supervised, which makes it of very limited utility. At this stage it is still a fun experiment at most.
- thegrim33 3y ago
  "do your email, or take a nap" <- The definition of an SAE Level 3 system is that you must remain in the seat, prepared to take control immediately when the system requests you to. Taking a nap or otherwise not paying attention is not what such a system supports.
  - dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
    > prepared to take control immediately I don't think that's correct. I've seen "in a certain amount of time" but you make it sound like it's a safety issue, which it's not, that being a key differentiation from a L2 system. When it can't drive it stops driving and you have to drive. If it's not a safety issue you could conceivably bee sleeping, as long as you can wake up in a timely manner. The SAE makes it clear that the car is driving at L3, and on that basis you would expect the transition to another driver would be graceful, just like with two human drivers.
    - olex 3y ago
      That "certain amount of time" is variable, but in practice is on the level of 10-15 seconds for the Mercedes system - at least that's what it was when it was first certified in Germany some time ago. It is designed to let you take your hands off the wheel and look at the scenery, but anything more than that is too much distraction for when it requires you to take over. And it will, because it's really not very capable at all - it's basically an advanced traffic jam autopilot that can follow other cars in a straight well marked line, that's it.
dclowd9901 3y ago
I’m curious what streets are under 40 mph and not “city” or “country” streets?
- spockz 3y ago
  Congested highways?
KennyBlanken 3y ago
For comparison, Tesla FSD veering directly at a cyclist, who was saved only by the driver's lightning reflexes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5wkENwrp_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5wkENwrp_k For comparison, Tesla FSD cruising right through a crossswalk with pedestrians and the driver is gleeful about it: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/teslas-full-self-driving-sees-pedestrian-chooses-not-to-slow-down/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/teslas-full-self-drivin... For comparison, Tesla FSD veering into oncoming traffic https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/128zncy/fsd_tesla_veers_on_to_oncoming_traffic/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/128zncy/fsd_te... I remember seeing a video where Tesla FSD veered right at an island/telephone pole. Another where it veered at a crowd of pedestrians on the corner of a signalized intersection waiting to cross. A reminder that the software has been buggy for years and Tesla is somehow being allowed to "beta test" it in public among people who did not consent to the risk.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  As a counter point: these Tesla videos are much more common because there are more Teslas driving around with the feature enabled. We don't know of the Mercedes is as much of a murder machine based on the little material from their FSD system there is. All self driving car manufacturers have videos of their cars doing the most ridiculous things. It's hard to pick one above the other. At least Mercedes seems to have documented their limitations rather than assumed their system works everywhere, so that's a good sign to me.
  - justapassenger 3y ago
    Yes, we don’t know if Mercedes is a murder machine. What we know, is that if Mercedes murders someone, they’ll take liability for it. Tesla will meanwhile smear you in the media for abuse of the system, that they actively promote as superior.
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  Because ultimately there hasn’t been a single publicized death or injury resulting from FSD Beta, while it only took a few months for a professional tester of Uber’s SDC effort to kill someone. So maybe it makes sense to test with millions of people for a few minutes a day instead of 8 hours a day with a few hired testers. The media would sure jump on such tesla headlines.
pavlov 3y ago
I have a Model 3 in Europe with the so-called FSD, and it’s mostly terrible. I regret paying for it. The car often doesn’t understand even speed limit signs, so it fails at the bare minimum of safety. Recently I visited LA and a friend gave me a drive in their Model 3. The difference in sensor interpretation quality was massive compared to what I see back home. That gave me hope of my aging Model 3 still seeing improvements… But also a nagging suspicion that Tesla may have spent a lot of manual effort on data labeling and heuristics for LA roads specifically, and the results may not be easily scalable elsewhere.
- omgwtfbyobbq 3y ago
  It will likely take a while because there is a difference. I'm not sure if it's manual effort or just having more data in certain regions. When I first got into the beta, it wasn't great, but has improved significantly since then.
- chroma 3y ago
  The difference in FSD behavior is due to the EU’s laws on autonomous vehicles. The EU mandates maximum lateral acceleration, lane change times, and many other details that make for a worse (and less safe) driving experience.
  - BonoboIO 3y ago
    Could you explain why the limits make the experience less safe. Less lateral acceleration should mean more safety, or I m wrong?
  - ifdefdebug 3y ago
    Now why would the EU mandate details that make for a less safe driving? You are implying they are either malicious or stunningly incompetent.
    - 221qqwe 3y ago
      > stunningly incompetent Not stunningly, just moderately. But generally yes, that's a good description for EU bureaucrats.
olliej 3y ago
So it can only be used on highways with a 40mph speed limit??? :D
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Can you explain how - Must be under 40 mph - Only during the daylight and only on certain highways - CANNOT be operated on city/country streets doesn't exclude all roads? Where I live, highways all have a speed limit of 65-75 mph, and all streets with a speed limit of 40 or below are city our county roads. So where can you actually use this?
- iknowstuff 3y ago
  It does. The system is useless. Not all freeways are even allowed.
- onion2k 3y ago
  In a traffic jam. Which is most of LAs roads at least some of the time.
- FormerBandmate 3y ago
  From what it sounds like, when you are in a traffic jam you use it and then the second that traffic jam ends you immediately have to take control. Ngl that sounds like it requires more attention than autopilot, if you’re not doing anything and then have to take full control that sounds like it could lead to an absurdly unsafe outcome
iknowstuff 3y ago
Yea you will struggle to find a single video of drive pilot where it’s not driven by a representative from Mercedes. In those, you can see the system disengage the second it doesn’t have a vehicle to follow at slow speeds right in front of it (like when the vehicle ahead changes lanes). Useless.
- bhauer 3y ago
  It is sad to see how many people in this thread will assume the absolute worst with respect to Tesla's FSD capabilities and then will accept this Level 3 announcement from Mercedes in the most charitable way possible. It requires little effort to achieve Level 3 in extremely constrained situations. For example, it would be almost trivial for any autonomy company to achieve "Level 3" at 5 miles per hour within a specific geography. 40 MPH with all of the other limitations of this system is simply not very interesting. It seems many people in this thread are highly motivated by prior bias toward the negative on Tesla; far more than those of us who appreciate what Tesla is doing.
  - giobox 3y ago
    I'm also finding this really sad. Its painfully obvious to anyone who has used either system recently the majority of commenters have no idea what they are talking about either, the amount of nonsense in this thread about both Tesla and Mercedes ADAS implementations. As always with car discussions on this site, people's feelings about brands and their stereotypical owners seem to cloud any reasonable discourse (especially when Tesla or FSD gets mentioned, sigh). That and of course everyone on Hackernews is apparently an automotive industry expert to boot...
iancmceachern 3y ago
Friendly reminder that there are many humans who choose to not operate their vehicle outside of these conditions as well. Not me, but I know people...
conroy 3y ago
> Tesla FSD navigating the complex city streets of LA for 60 minutes with zero human intervention. 17 fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-a...
- fallingknife 3y ago
  You're right, that is shockingly low! 43,000 people die in car crashes in the US every year, and only 17 in Teslas since 2019. That's only 1 in 7500.
  - georgyo 3y ago
    These statistics are meaningless. How many Tesla cars with full self driving are there compared to regular cars? A Tesla with FSD will only be using FSD a small fraction of the time. If we had statistics on the number of hours FSD was active compared to the number of hours all other car driving of all cars we might be able to compared these numbers. Hour wise, I think normal driving is way above 7500:1.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      Why are people willing to excuse things because they happen in a car? If an AI power tool were going haywire once in a while and chopping the arms off of bystanders near by, would we find that acceptable because people using non-AI powered tools also chop off their body parts sometimes? 'We can't know if it would have happened if a person were in control' is not an argument that would fly for anything else just as dangerous.
      - fallingknife 3y ago
        > would we find that acceptable because people using non-AI powered tools also chop off their body parts sometimes? Yes, if the AI power tools chop off less limbs than the human controlled power tools, I would find that acceptable.
qwytw 3y ago
> This seems like a marketing gimmick by Mercedes at best; the two technologies aren't even in the same league. You might be right or not but gave zero arguments in your comment. The fact that these safety/regulatory restrictions exist does not mean the system is not more capable.
golemiprague 3y ago
[dead]
jimjimjim 3y ago
good god! No autonomous drive should drive through fog or flooded roads or construction zones. I wouldn't trust any system in those conditions regardless of what stans say.
activiation 3y ago
A few weeks ago, i saw a Tesla suddenly go 90 degrees on a small road downtown Atlanta ... It took a while for it to get going again... Of course I don't know if it was FSD but I have never seen a human do something this dumb.
gonehome 3y ago
Yeah this isn’t beating Tesla to anything. If you constrain a system to where it’s effectively useless and declare victory, that’s worse than trying to actually solve the problem and saying you’re not there yet. It’s lowering the goal precipitously until you can achieve and then pretending you did it. Tesla has flaws, but this is a dumb article.
- cbsmith 3y ago
  > Yeah this isn’t beating Tesla to anything. They beat Tesla to being certified in California as Level 3, with restrictions.
  - gonehome 3y ago
    anything that matters (which was implied by the rest of my comment) They can check a box and make this press release though, I guess that’s worth something.
    - cbsmith 3y ago
      It means the headline is not wrong. You're also kind of walking a fine line on the "No True Scotsman" concept...
oxfordmale 3y ago
Mercedes accepts legal liability for collisions if the system is used under these stringent conditions. Tesla doesn't do this. It also doesn't mean it doesn't have the technical capability to drive through the streets of LA for 60 minutes. https://www.thatcham.org/mercedes-to-accept-liability-for-accidents-when-automated-driving-system-engaged/ https://www.thatcham.org/mercedes-to-accept-liability-for-ac...
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  Working in the AV space, it's really frustrating how confidently people who have no idea about what's hard and what isn't go off about Tesla right now. Mercedes has soundly beaten the last decade of Tesla efforts by reaching L3. I've personally watched FSD go off the rails and into a crash situation within 60 seconds of being turned on three times this month (I have a friend who loves to try it in San Francisco) Had it crashed it'd be on my friend, not Tesla. The fact Mercedes is taking responsibility puts it in an entirely different level of effectiveness. - People also don't seem to understand Mercedes has a separate L2 system that works above 45 mph that already scores better than AP by consumer reports
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    > People also don't seem to understand Mercedes has a separate L2 system that works above 45 mph that already scores better than AP by consumer reports Isn't Mercedes' L2 system non-upgradable, though? i.e. people with Merc's L2 system today won't be able to upgrade to L3+ later on, they'll need to buy a whole new car - right? I bring this up only because I bought my X in 2018 with FSD prepaid - it's 5 years old now, and thanks to the gratis retrofitted computer upgrades it has the same level of FSD functionality as a factory-new Model Y purchased today - and I value that level of commitment to their carbuyers - whereas all the other carmakers I've ever dealt-with are the type that gladly charg $lots just for annual updates to the navigation maps SD card. (I don't want to be seen defending Tesla, let alone Elon Musk here, but Tesla has avoided plenty of the worst practices of traditional automakers (okayokay, excepting the heated-seats thing).
    - 3y ago
amelius 3y ago
Do they use a RealTime OS? If so, (how) do they run GPU drivers on it? And if not, how do they guarantee that the system is responsive and safe? (Of course a third option would be that they don't use an OS at all for the mission critical stuff).
anaganisk 3y ago
Yowzzaa, but the damm Beta on Tesla can't still think of slowing down while cornering on steep curves, throwing people on to the side and not navigate into a dead end that drops into the ocean. This is not an anecdote, it's my personal experience. No way I'm not gonna trust a system again, that puts human lives (even those who are not driving a Tesla) for a beta test.
foota 3y ago
Sounds like they don't want people to die from their product.
wonnage 3y ago
Tesla FSD is a marketing gimmick
jacquesm 3y ago
I don't think we're going to agree here. > This seems like a marketing gimmick by Mercedes at best; No, this is what a professional roll-out of a feature like this should look like. > the two technologies aren't even in the same league. > Any comparison is laughable. Well, at least we agree on these two. But probably not about the direction.
Veserv 3y ago
And here is FSD: https://dawnproject.com/drivers-have-reported-thousands-of-critical-safety-defects-in-teslas-full-self-driving-software/ https://dawnproject.com/drivers-have-reported-thousands-of-c... By my count, 46 videos of it not staying in lane, 54 videos of it swerving into objects, 23 videos of it ignoring red lights, 22 videos failing at intersections, 12 videos of pulling out into traffic, 15 videos ignoring road signs, 7 videos ignoring pedestrians, 5 videos ignoring speed limits, 23 videos stopping randomly, 5 videos failing in the snow, 3 videos ignoring buses, 5 videos speeding in school zones with children present, and 3 videos ignoring school bus stop signs.
fortran77 3y ago
I own a Tesla with the FSD Beta. (Model S Plaid). I don't know why you seem so bitter about Mercedes product. I'm excited about it! The Tesla FSD really isn't useful, except as an enhanced cruise control.
adrr 3y ago
Owning a Tesla with FSD, it no where close to being able to drive autonomous. I have intervened multiple times where it would have caused a serious accident like merging into a concrete barrier or not detecting a car while trying to turn right into a lane. They still can't fix the phantom braking problem has plague my car from the beginning and i have to drive on the freeways with my foot over the accelerator so i can cancel the hard braking.
legulere 3y ago
Tesla FSD is useless though, because you need to constantly monitor the system for it to do something stupid (which it more or less regularly does). With a level 3 system like the one from mercedes you can check your phone or do anything else and only have to react when it tells you to take control again.
martindbp 3y ago
Mercedes plays tic-tac-toe while Tesla plays Chess. It's just not comparable. Tesla is taking a radically different and open approach to autonomy compared to every other player. That opens them up to intense criticism though as there are thousands of videos online, with successes and failures. When close to a half a million people are using an autonomous system across the full ODD and all of the US and Canada it's going to be very easy to compile a collection of critical failures. But IMO this is the best way to make fast real progress in this space and not just a limited Disney ride.
okdood64 3y ago
> Only during the daylight This makes no sense to me based on the technology used. Cruise actually previously had a permit to ONLY operate at night.
- harambae 3y ago
  In addition to radar and lidar, they use cameras for something according to the article. That's probably the component that doesn't work as well as night. (If I had to guess what the cameras are for maybe traffic light detection, lane detection, and human review of video after an incident)

by gzer0 3y ago

karaterobot 3y ago

Skeptical but genuine question here: if Tesla's Level 3 system is more advanced, why don't they have authorization to release it? And why does the article quote Tesla as saying they only have a level 2 system?

jeremyjh 3y ago
They aren’t pursuing it, and stopped publicly reporting disengagement data. They found out their stans are happy to buy the cars and use FSD without liability protection or safety data, so why bother? Whenever one crashes it’s the driver’s fault by definition.

akmarinov 3y ago

In the end, Mercedes assumes liability for its system, where Tesla doesn’t. Tells you all you need to know.

simondotau 3y ago
How exactly is Mercedes accepting liability? I mean to say, how does this work in practice? Who absorbs the demerit points if your car is accused of going 40 in a 30 zone?
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > How exactly is Mercedes accepting liability? You’re indemnified.
  - kbos87 3y ago
    Mercedes can’t indemnify you. Local police and prosecutors make those decisions.
    - nradov 3y ago
      Nope. Local police and prosecutors have no authority to make decisions on liability. Their authority is limited to criminal matters. However, police reports can generally be used as evidence in civil trials where judges and juries make decisions about liability. There may be some circumstances where a driver operating a Mercedes-Benz vehicle using Drive Pilot could be committing a criminal offense. For example, I think sitting in the driver's seat while intoxicated would still be illegal even if you're not actually driving. But that is separate from liability.
    - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
      > Mercedes can’t indemnify you. Local police and prosecutors make those decisions Are you thinking of immunity? Indemnity is regularly contracted between private parties. (Also, police can’t give you immunity in America.)
wilg 3y ago
Is there evidence for this?
- DoesntMatter22 3y ago
  [flagged]
- djcannabiz 3y ago
  https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-responsibility-drive-pilot/ https://insideevs.com/news/575160/mercedes-accepts-legal-res... "once a driver turns on Drive Pilot, they are "no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages." The publication goes so far as to say that a driver could actually pay zero attention to the road ahead, play on their mobile phones, and even watch a movie. If the car were to crash, Mercedes would be 100 percent responsible."
  - wilg 3y ago
    Yes, but is there any evidence this is actually happening? Not that they announced it might a year ago.
    - wilg 3y ago
      Folks, don't downvote me, show me where Mercedes actually says they are taking liability for actual cars that are actually on the road with customers. What people cite on this is a vague marketing puff piece from a year ago. If they are doing it, it should be pretty easy to find out how that is structured from their website or whatever the car owner has signed, or just like literally any evidence whatsoever.
  - dmix 3y ago
    This explains the 40mph and other extreme restrictions
    - froh 3y ago
      for now, that is. in German they call it "traffic jam pilot" Staupilot. they start L3 autonomy with the boring and tedious scenario first. it's obvious they'll expand it to more and more freeway/highway driving scenarios, and from there grow into any out of town driving. meanwhile Waymo and Tesla can take their bruises with downtown traffic and pedestrians and children and hand drawn road signs and dirty signs and poorly placed ones and whichever more crazy real life reality show surprise guests appear on stage... I wouldn't (and I don't think you did but several others in such discussions do) snicker too much on Mercedes. they have a knack on getting a couple of car related things pretty right.
slg 3y ago
This doesn't mean the system is actually better. It just means that Mercedes thinks that the cost of covering the liability won't exceed the boost in sales that come from this decision. It reminds me of what an automotive innovator once said[1]: >Here's the way I see it, Ted. Guy puts a fancy guarantee on a box 'cause he wants you to feel all warm and toasty inside... Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is, isn't it? Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for now, for your customer's sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality product from me. Not that I'm implying Autopilot is necessarily a "quality product" in comparison. It is just that a guarantee or liability coverage is nothing but a marketing expense for the company issuing it. It doesn't actually mean the product is higher quality. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB7WbTTlu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEB7WbTTlu4
jpalomaki 3y ago
I can understand financial liability, but what if somebody gets seriously hurt and there’s criminal charges? Is there already a legal framework in US for transferring this kind of liabilities from the driver to manufacturer?
nathanasmith 3y ago
>Tells you all you need to know. Thanks for the subtle reminder that your statement is most definitely not "all I need to know."

simion314 3y ago

Would you bet your life on a Tesla Twitter promise? They are not even betting one cent on their car safety.

zaroth 3y ago
> They are not even betting one cent in their car safety. Do you mean strictly in the sense of accepting liability for crashes while AutoPilot is engaged? Because Tesla makes safety a primary selling point of their vehicles. Objectively Tesla invests hugely in the safety of their vehicles, and scores the absolute highest marks for safety in many government tests. Tesla makes an L2 system where the driver must remain engaged. And part of their FSD system includes the most sophisticated driver gaze and attention tracking system on the market. This has made their FSD system on predominantly non-highway roads safer than the average human driver without FSD.
- justapassenger 3y ago
  > And part of their FSD system includes the most sophisticated driver gaze and attention tracking system on the market. That’s a just blunt lie. Their driver monitoring system is very deficient. They lack, for example, industry standard of infrared camera that allows you to see through the sunglasses. And all older Model S/X, that have FSD, lack any camera at all.
  - zaroth 3y ago
    You’re right, their older cars don’t have their most advanced system. When I said “on the market” I mean the cars they are selling now, not historically. I’ve found the system extremely adept at gaze tracking and alerting. The cabin camera is infrared in their latest models (at least for the last 2 years). Please don’t call me a liar. I am happy to be called wrong and corrected. I should have said “one of the most advanced” because this is in truth a subjective measure and I don’t think agencies like NHTSA rank and qualify attention tracking?
- simion314 3y ago
  No, I mean actually bet your life, say put your little children in the back and send them to some destination because you seen Tesla videos on YouTube. if you won\t do it for a randoms destination, on what would you risk your children life, on some white listed high-way? which one?

belter 3y ago

Took me less than a few minutes, to find in the same channel, FSD failing and the human having to intervene. Here it is at the proper time and for a video uploaded 10 hours ago... - https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=995 https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=995 And even worst failures...looking at all these I simply do not believe the videos posted are not edited or a selection of a success out of many failed ones. https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=1252 https://youtu.be/KG4yABOlNjk?t=1252 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=77 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=77 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=196 https://youtu.be/WowhH_Xry9s?t=196 Since the video was live on YouTube no editing was done... These videos are only posting the successful events, we need to see them all. That is why probably Tesla is not putting their money where their mouth is.

zaroth 3y ago
This is a great example! I hope people will take the time to click and watch it drive. I think it’s a tough call in this case. The Tesla is trying not to block an intersection where a light is green but there’s no room to clear the intersection on the other side due to traffic ahead. In fact an oncoming car is able to turn left in front of the Tesla because it waited. Probably the law is that you should NOT enter the intersection in such a state, but the human nature would be to make a more nuanced judgement of “how bad would it be” to continue thru and possibly get stuck sticking out into the intersection for a bit until traffic moves again. I would think - how long might I be stuck? Would it actual impede other traffic? Also factors like, am I’m late for work? Am I frustrated because traffic has been horrible or am I enjoying a Sunday drive? Ego (Tesla’s name for the driving software) doesn’t get impatient. It can maximally obey all traffic regulations at all times if they code it to do so, even if human drivers behind might be laying on the horn. This little clip really shows how much nuance is involved in designing these systems, and how doing the technically right thing can either be wrong or at least ambiguously right.
- belter 3y ago
  That is not the failure. The failure is that would not move anymore and the driver had to intervene and accelerate.

Gys 3y ago

Very serious limitation of Tesla: The human has to keep the hands on the wheel at all times and eyes on the road. Edit: I looked at these FSD videos before and am very sure it will not work that well in an average European city. Unfortunately, because I really would love to buy a real self driving car that legally allows me to watch a movie while driving (highways is enough).

croes 3y ago

They are all heavily limited. But FSD isn't even necessary to help, an autonomous acceleration and follow mode for all cars on traffic lights and in traffic jams would already have huge benefits.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rvnx 3y ago

It's very different goals, the Tesla approach is more of a hack, which is to release things, without any liability or guarantee "we quickly hacked this together, good luck, if you die or get injured this is your problem!", and Mercedes is delivering a product that only support a few features but do it well, and they put their responsibility on it.

dmix 3y ago
What features does Tesla FSD offer that Mercedes doesn’t?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Liability.
  - dmix 3y ago
    Not sure how that relates to the point OP was making. Unless I misunderstood his point? > Mercedes is delivering a product that only support a few features but do it well This naturally implies that Tesla experimented with a broader set of self-driving features in an throw-it-at-the-wall experimental fashion. Which is more of a technical/product management question than a financial/legal/marketing one. Unless OP simply means Mercedes released the same set of features just extremely restricted in what you can do with them? If so the hacker/experimental vs limited focus on "small set of features" dichotomy is not super relevant. It's just business risk aversion or gov regulatory strategy, not product/technology development strategy.
lm28469 3y ago
> "we quickly hacked this together, good luck, if you die or get injured this is your problem!" Or kill someone who didn't ask for any of this

adsfgiodsnrio 3y ago

So, in the absolute best-case scenario cherry-picked from thousands of videos, Tesla's system is capable of going twenty-five miles without making dangerous mistakes. I agree the comparison is laughable.

hristov 3y ago

Even considering its heavy limitations, the Mercedes system is miles better than the Tesla, because it is actually useful. You can actually turn on the system and do your email, or take a nap. Yes, the 40 mph limitation on highways seems to make it useless, but many highways get congested to the point where you are not going over 40 mph anyways, and those are the times when it is most frustrating to drive. And regarding the FSD, most youtube videos I have seen run into human intervention within 20 minutes or so. Going 60 minutes without human intervention is certainly possible if you get a bit lucky but that does not mean you should take your eyes off the road for a second. FSD still has to be constantly supervised, which makes it of very limited utility. At this stage it is still a fun experiment at most.

thegrim33 3y ago
"do your email, or take a nap" <- The definition of an SAE Level 3 system is that you must remain in the seat, prepared to take control immediately when the system requests you to. Taking a nap or otherwise not paying attention is not what such a system supports.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  > prepared to take control immediately I don't think that's correct. I've seen "in a certain amount of time" but you make it sound like it's a safety issue, which it's not, that being a key differentiation from a L2 system. When it can't drive it stops driving and you have to drive. If it's not a safety issue you could conceivably bee sleeping, as long as you can wake up in a timely manner. The SAE makes it clear that the car is driving at L3, and on that basis you would expect the transition to another driver would be graceful, just like with two human drivers.
  - olex 3y ago
    That "certain amount of time" is variable, but in practice is on the level of 10-15 seconds for the Mercedes system - at least that's what it was when it was first certified in Germany some time ago. It is designed to let you take your hands off the wheel and look at the scenery, but anything more than that is too much distraction for when it requires you to take over. And it will, because it's really not very capable at all - it's basically an advanced traffic jam autopilot that can follow other cars in a straight well marked line, that's it.

dclowd9901 3y ago

I’m curious what streets are under 40 mph and not “city” or “country” streets?

spockz 3y ago
Congested highways?

KennyBlanken 3y ago

For comparison, Tesla FSD veering directly at a cyclist, who was saved only by the driver's lightning reflexes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5wkENwrp_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5wkENwrp_k For comparison, Tesla FSD cruising right through a crossswalk with pedestrians and the driver is gleeful about it: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/teslas-full-self-driving-sees-pedestrian-chooses-not-to-slow-down/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/05/teslas-full-self-drivin... For comparison, Tesla FSD veering into oncoming traffic https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/128zncy/fsd_tesla_veers_on_to_oncoming_traffic/ https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/128zncy/fsd_te... I remember seeing a video where Tesla FSD veered right at an island/telephone pole. Another where it veered at a crowd of pedestrians on the corner of a signalized intersection waiting to cross. A reminder that the software has been buggy for years and Tesla is somehow being allowed to "beta test" it in public among people who did not consent to the risk.

jeroenhd 3y ago
As a counter point: these Tesla videos are much more common because there are more Teslas driving around with the feature enabled. We don't know of the Mercedes is as much of a murder machine based on the little material from their FSD system there is. All self driving car manufacturers have videos of their cars doing the most ridiculous things. It's hard to pick one above the other. At least Mercedes seems to have documented their limitations rather than assumed their system works everywhere, so that's a good sign to me.
- justapassenger 3y ago
  Yes, we don’t know if Mercedes is a murder machine. What we know, is that if Mercedes murders someone, they’ll take liability for it. Tesla will meanwhile smear you in the media for abuse of the system, that they actively promote as superior.
iknowstuff 3y ago
Because ultimately there hasn’t been a single publicized death or injury resulting from FSD Beta, while it only took a few months for a professional tester of Uber’s SDC effort to kill someone. So maybe it makes sense to test with millions of people for a few minutes a day instead of 8 hours a day with a few hired testers. The media would sure jump on such tesla headlines.

pavlov 3y ago

I have a Model 3 in Europe with the so-called FSD, and it’s mostly terrible. I regret paying for it. The car often doesn’t understand even speed limit signs, so it fails at the bare minimum of safety. Recently I visited LA and a friend gave me a drive in their Model 3. The difference in sensor interpretation quality was massive compared to what I see back home. That gave me hope of my aging Model 3 still seeing improvements… But also a nagging suspicion that Tesla may have spent a lot of manual effort on data labeling and heuristics for LA roads specifically, and the results may not be easily scalable elsewhere.

omgwtfbyobbq 3y ago
It will likely take a while because there is a difference. I'm not sure if it's manual effort or just having more data in certain regions. When I first got into the beta, it wasn't great, but has improved significantly since then.
chroma 3y ago
The difference in FSD behavior is due to the EU’s laws on autonomous vehicles. The EU mandates maximum lateral acceleration, lane change times, and many other details that make for a worse (and less safe) driving experience.
- BonoboIO 3y ago
  Could you explain why the limits make the experience less safe. Less lateral acceleration should mean more safety, or I m wrong?
- ifdefdebug 3y ago
  Now why would the EU mandate details that make for a less safe driving? You are implying they are either malicious or stunningly incompetent.
  - 221qqwe 3y ago
    > stunningly incompetent Not stunningly, just moderately. But generally yes, that's a good description for EU bureaucrats.

olliej 3y ago

So it can only be used on highways with a 40mph speed limit??? :D

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago

Can you explain how - Must be under 40 mph - Only during the daylight and only on certain highways - CANNOT be operated on city/country streets doesn't exclude all roads? Where I live, highways all have a speed limit of 65-75 mph, and all streets with a speed limit of 40 or below are city our county roads. So where can you actually use this?

iknowstuff 3y ago
It does. The system is useless. Not all freeways are even allowed.
onion2k 3y ago
In a traffic jam. Which is most of LAs roads at least some of the time.
FormerBandmate 3y ago
From what it sounds like, when you are in a traffic jam you use it and then the second that traffic jam ends you immediately have to take control. Ngl that sounds like it requires more attention than autopilot, if you’re not doing anything and then have to take full control that sounds like it could lead to an absurdly unsafe outcome

iknowstuff 3y ago

Yea you will struggle to find a single video of drive pilot where it’s not driven by a representative from Mercedes. In those, you can see the system disengage the second it doesn’t have a vehicle to follow at slow speeds right in front of it (like when the vehicle ahead changes lanes). Useless.

bhauer 3y ago
It is sad to see how many people in this thread will assume the absolute worst with respect to Tesla's FSD capabilities and then will accept this Level 3 announcement from Mercedes in the most charitable way possible. It requires little effort to achieve Level 3 in extremely constrained situations. For example, it would be almost trivial for any autonomy company to achieve "Level 3" at 5 miles per hour within a specific geography. 40 MPH with all of the other limitations of this system is simply not very interesting. It seems many people in this thread are highly motivated by prior bias toward the negative on Tesla; far more than those of us who appreciate what Tesla is doing.
- giobox 3y ago
  I'm also finding this really sad. Its painfully obvious to anyone who has used either system recently the majority of commenters have no idea what they are talking about either, the amount of nonsense in this thread about both Tesla and Mercedes ADAS implementations. As always with car discussions on this site, people's feelings about brands and their stereotypical owners seem to cloud any reasonable discourse (especially when Tesla or FSD gets mentioned, sigh). That and of course everyone on Hackernews is apparently an automotive industry expert to boot...

iancmceachern 3y ago

Friendly reminder that there are many humans who choose to not operate their vehicle outside of these conditions as well. Not me, but I know people...

conroy 3y ago

> Tesla FSD navigating the complex city streets of LA for 60 minutes with zero human intervention. 17 fatalities, 736 crashes: The shocking toll of Tesla’s Autopilot https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-a...

fallingknife 3y ago
You're right, that is shockingly low! 43,000 people die in car crashes in the US every year, and only 17 in Teslas since 2019. That's only 1 in 7500.
- georgyo 3y ago
  These statistics are meaningless. How many Tesla cars with full self driving are there compared to regular cars? A Tesla with FSD will only be using FSD a small fraction of the time. If we had statistics on the number of hours FSD was active compared to the number of hours all other car driving of all cars we might be able to compared these numbers. Hour wise, I think normal driving is way above 7500:1.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    Why are people willing to excuse things because they happen in a car? If an AI power tool were going haywire once in a while and chopping the arms off of bystanders near by, would we find that acceptable because people using non-AI powered tools also chop off their body parts sometimes? 'We can't know if it would have happened if a person were in control' is not an argument that would fly for anything else just as dangerous.
    - fallingknife 3y ago
      > would we find that acceptable because people using non-AI powered tools also chop off their body parts sometimes? Yes, if the AI power tools chop off less limbs than the human controlled power tools, I would find that acceptable.

qwytw 3y ago

> This seems like a marketing gimmick by Mercedes at best; the two technologies aren't even in the same league. You might be right or not but gave zero arguments in your comment. The fact that these safety/regulatory restrictions exist does not mean the system is not more capable.

golemiprague 3y ago

[dead]

jimjimjim 3y ago

good god! No autonomous drive should drive through fog or flooded roads or construction zones. I wouldn't trust any system in those conditions regardless of what stans say.

activiation 3y ago

A few weeks ago, i saw a Tesla suddenly go 90 degrees on a small road downtown Atlanta ... It took a while for it to get going again... Of course I don't know if it was FSD but I have never seen a human do something this dumb.

gonehome 3y ago

Yeah this isn’t beating Tesla to anything. If you constrain a system to where it’s effectively useless and declare victory, that’s worse than trying to actually solve the problem and saying you’re not there yet. It’s lowering the goal precipitously until you can achieve and then pretending you did it. Tesla has flaws, but this is a dumb article.

cbsmith 3y ago
> Yeah this isn’t beating Tesla to anything. They beat Tesla to being certified in California as Level 3, with restrictions.
- gonehome 3y ago
  anything that matters (which was implied by the rest of my comment) They can check a box and make this press release though, I guess that’s worth something.
  - cbsmith 3y ago
    It means the headline is not wrong. You're also kind of walking a fine line on the "No True Scotsman" concept...

oxfordmale 3y ago

Mercedes accepts legal liability for collisions if the system is used under these stringent conditions. Tesla doesn't do this. It also doesn't mean it doesn't have the technical capability to drive through the streets of LA for 60 minutes. https://www.thatcham.org/mercedes-to-accept-liability-for-accidents-when-automated-driving-system-engaged/ https://www.thatcham.org/mercedes-to-accept-liability-for-ac...

BoorishBears 3y ago
Working in the AV space, it's really frustrating how confidently people who have no idea about what's hard and what isn't go off about Tesla right now. Mercedes has soundly beaten the last decade of Tesla efforts by reaching L3. I've personally watched FSD go off the rails and into a crash situation within 60 seconds of being turned on three times this month (I have a friend who loves to try it in San Francisco) Had it crashed it'd be on my friend, not Tesla. The fact Mercedes is taking responsibility puts it in an entirely different level of effectiveness. - People also don't seem to understand Mercedes has a separate L2 system that works above 45 mph that already scores better than AP by consumer reports
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  > People also don't seem to understand Mercedes has a separate L2 system that works above 45 mph that already scores better than AP by consumer reports Isn't Mercedes' L2 system non-upgradable, though? i.e. people with Merc's L2 system today won't be able to upgrade to L3+ later on, they'll need to buy a whole new car - right? I bring this up only because I bought my X in 2018 with FSD prepaid - it's 5 years old now, and thanks to the gratis retrofitted computer upgrades it has the same level of FSD functionality as a factory-new Model Y purchased today - and I value that level of commitment to their carbuyers - whereas all the other carmakers I've ever dealt-with are the type that gladly charg $lots just for annual updates to the navigation maps SD card. (I don't want to be seen defending Tesla, let alone Elon Musk here, but Tesla has avoided plenty of the worst practices of traditional automakers (okayokay, excepting the heated-seats thing).
  - 3y ago

amelius 3y ago

Do they use a RealTime OS? If so, (how) do they run GPU drivers on it? And if not, how do they guarantee that the system is responsive and safe? (Of course a third option would be that they don't use an OS at all for the mission critical stuff).

anaganisk 3y ago

Yowzzaa, but the damm Beta on Tesla can't still think of slowing down while cornering on steep curves, throwing people on to the side and not navigate into a dead end that drops into the ocean. This is not an anecdote, it's my personal experience. No way I'm not gonna trust a system again, that puts human lives (even those who are not driving a Tesla) for a beta test.

foota 3y ago

Sounds like they don't want people to die from their product.

wonnage 3y ago

Tesla FSD is a marketing gimmick

jacquesm 3y ago

I don't think we're going to agree here. > This seems like a marketing gimmick by Mercedes at best; No, this is what a professional roll-out of a feature like this should look like. > the two technologies aren't even in the same league. > Any comparison is laughable. Well, at least we agree on these two. But probably not about the direction.

Veserv 3y ago

And here is FSD: https://dawnproject.com/drivers-have-reported-thousands-of-critical-safety-defects-in-teslas-full-self-driving-software/ https://dawnproject.com/drivers-have-reported-thousands-of-c... By my count, 46 videos of it not staying in lane, 54 videos of it swerving into objects, 23 videos of it ignoring red lights, 22 videos failing at intersections, 12 videos of pulling out into traffic, 15 videos ignoring road signs, 7 videos ignoring pedestrians, 5 videos ignoring speed limits, 23 videos stopping randomly, 5 videos failing in the snow, 3 videos ignoring buses, 5 videos speeding in school zones with children present, and 3 videos ignoring school bus stop signs.

fortran77 3y ago

I own a Tesla with the FSD Beta. (Model S Plaid). I don't know why you seem so bitter about Mercedes product. I'm excited about it! The Tesla FSD really isn't useful, except as an enhanced cruise control.

adrr 3y ago

Owning a Tesla with FSD, it no where close to being able to drive autonomous. I have intervened multiple times where it would have caused a serious accident like merging into a concrete barrier or not detecting a car while trying to turn right into a lane. They still can't fix the phantom braking problem has plague my car from the beginning and i have to drive on the freeways with my foot over the accelerator so i can cancel the hard braking.

legulere 3y ago

Tesla FSD is useless though, because you need to constantly monitor the system for it to do something stupid (which it more or less regularly does). With a level 3 system like the one from mercedes you can check your phone or do anything else and only have to react when it tells you to take control again.

martindbp 3y ago

Mercedes plays tic-tac-toe while Tesla plays Chess. It's just not comparable. Tesla is taking a radically different and open approach to autonomy compared to every other player. That opens them up to intense criticism though as there are thousands of videos online, with successes and failures. When close to a half a million people are using an autonomous system across the full ODD and all of the US and Canada it's going to be very easy to compile a collection of critical failures. But IMO this is the best way to make fast real progress in this space and not just a limited Disney ride.

okdood64 3y ago

> Only during the daylight This makes no sense to me based on the technology used. Cruise actually previously had a permit to ONLY operate at night.

harambae 3y ago
In addition to radar and lidar, they use cameras for something according to the article. That's probably the component that doesn't work as well as night. (If I had to guess what the cameras are for maybe traffic light detection, lane detection, and human review of video after an incident)