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Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.
- superkuh 3y ago2 out of 50 states is technically the USA, I guesss. Hopefully it can pass the driving tests in California and Nevada.
- jsemrau 3y agoCalifornia and Nevada are the only two states where the company can legally sell the technology to consumers. The two state DMVs gave Mercedes approval to begin selling the cars last year—Nevada in January, and California in June. Mercedes announced in September its plans to begin sales, but this is the first news of the cars actually reaching consumers.
- kuschku 3y agoMercedes takes all legal responsibility for any accidents caused during autonomous operation. So far, autonomous operation is limited to relatively few situations, but most importantly it includes traffic jams (which is where human drivers quickly lose focus).
- mongol 3y agoWho will be in line for jail sentences if it comes to that?
- ricardobeat 3y agoThe vast majority of traffic accidents does not result in jailtime for anyone involved. Since algorithms cannot have malice, the only offense left is negligence which for companies usually means a heavy fine and/or legal restraints, maybe prosecution.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Dalewyn 3y agoI'm always terrified I will doze off without realizing when I'm in traffic jams. There's just so little stimulants that my brain demands going into standby mode.
- surfingdino 3y ago> "all legal responsibility" I have a feeling there is enough small print to allow them to wiggle out of most situations.
- herewego 3y agoThey are opening themselves up to massive liability even with “fine print” — this is meaningful and should not be disregarded. Just because there’s some super indem clause in their customer agreement doesn’t mean the courts will rule in its favor and not strike it out.
- harles 3y agoCalifornia being the most populous state is a pretty big deal. I'm guessing the focus on two states is more a result of Mercedes' focus on geofencing/mapping test areas than anything.
- surfingdino 3y agoIt makes sense from the business point of view. A staged release is easier and less expensive to manage.
- cududa 3y agoWell yeah that’s what the name “United States” means - different states in one country. And each state has its own set of laws. Dunno why this example popped into my head but - back during COVID when we had the first case in the state of Washington, we said “first case in the U.S.”
- robertn702 3y agohttps://archive.ph/1U6j6 https://archive.ph/1U6j6
- harles 3y ago> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expectations. It's not clear how good the tech is here, but it's a political victory for the space if nothing else.
- SeanAnderson 3y agoMmm, if you said Cruise I'd be on board, but Waymo is my primary mode of transportation around SF these days.
- AlotOfReading 3y agoWhat are you referring to with Waymo? They were still operating in LA and SF as of this week. Do you mean Cruise (owned by GM)? In any case, the Mercedes system is what's known as a conditionally autonomous system. It can drive itself under specific conditions, but a human is still involved in operating the vehicle as soon as it exits that design domain. Waymo (and Cruise) are fully autonomous systems. Humans are not involved in the control loop and the vehicles will stop if they leave their operational domain. Tesla FSD is not an autonomous system at all and requires a human to always be in control.
- _xivi 3y ago> What are you referring to with Waymo? No OP but there were multiple headlines of Waymo incidents just recently - https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/13/waymo-recall-crash-software-self-driving-cars/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/13/waymo-recall-crash-softwar... - https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-car-strikes-bicyclist-san-francisco-injuries https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-...
- harles 3y agoWaymo and Cruise have failed to scale and it doesn't look like they ever will. It's difficult to find a single article with the full context, but around 2017 as Waymo started giving limited rides to the public, everyone though the problem had been solved. There was a flood of startups hoping to be a strong second mover in the space, and then basically nothing. Expectations have shifted over time, but 7 years later and there's been only small incremental progress. > In any case, the Mercedes system is what's known as a conditionally autonomous system. Yes, but it's significant progress if it reaches consumer hands. This sounds like the typical Waymo marketing of "you can't get to Level 4 through Level 3". I bought into this at one point, but Waymo and Cruise have demonstrated that going straight to Level 4 with $100k+ (probably much more than that) of sensors and corresponding maintenance doesn't scale.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoThe first actually autonomous car (under very specific circumstances) sold to the general consumer should be a historic day for Mercedes US, and the auto industry as a whole. But there doesn't seem to be even a press release on mbusa.com?
- paxys 3y agoConsidering there are grand total of 65 cars available for sale, it's obvious that the company is still testing the waters. There's no reason to do a massive PR push until they are ready and can scale production.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoThose 65 cars could easily be >10% of all new S classes available on dealer lots in the two states, the majority of customers order custom made or order special chauffer variants.
- cbb330 3y agoAgreed, as I’m familiar as a buyer and with friends who work at MBUSA in dealer inventory.
- barrenko 3y agoAll things AI related seem to suffer from some kind of collective hedonic adaptation. I was pretty thrilled to start using ChatGPT as a math tutor, nowadays I'm just "meeh" (while still using it as a math tutor).
- rsynnott 3y agoThere was a bit of press a few years back when they got approval in Germany, but I’d imagine that Mercedes might be reluctant to bet the farm on this or link it to their public image; self driving cars have not, ah, exactly been an unqualified success thus far, and raising expectations could come back to bite them later.
- prng2021 3y ago"Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph." This is not what people think of when they see a headline like this. It's just a bunch of PR bs.
- TrainedMonkey 3y agoThe key difference is that the driver is not required to watch the road - I.E. the liability is on Mercedes.
- bhauer 3y agoExactly. As a mental exercise, people should consider how broad or narrow the functional domain needs to be for Level 3 (liability assumed by manufacturer) to be truly of note versus Level 2 (liability remains with owner). Would a Level 3 system that only navigates parking lots at up to 5 MPH be notable versus a Level 2 system that drove everywhere? For me, a very narrow Level 3 system like Mercedes' is absolutely less interesting versus a very broad Level 2 system like Tesla's. The technical capability of Tesla's system is substantial. How important is taking liability, really, to the bigger picture of increasing the technical capability of autonomy? A narrow Level 3 system is not an entirely empty milestone, of course, but compared to the actual work of increasing driving capability, assuming liability seems like a game played primarily by deploying lawyers, not programmers.
- electrondood 3y ago> Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. So this isn't any more of an advancement than Tesla's autopilot, which has been standard in every car for years. Basically if Tesla decided to self-insure when autopilot is engaged, it would be the same. Misleading headline. The cars aren't autonomous at all. They have self-insured cruise control under specific restricted conditions.
- haswell 3y ago> The cars aren't autonomous at all Isn’t this just a swing of the pendulum to a similarly misleading extreme? Somewhere between “this car is autonomous” and “not autonomous at all” lies the truth of the matter. These cars have the capability of driving autonomously under specific conditions. If you drive a lot under those conditions, this functionality may be compelling. Comparing this to cruise control (the automatic variety of which has been available for many years at this point) also seems quite misleading.
- loeg 3y agoThe important distinction is that the Mercedes does not demand the driver be paying attention and ready to take over immediately if the car decides to pop out of self-driving mode. Tesla does not offer that.
- gitfan86 3y agoAre you sure about that? If it starts raining or the sun goes down, the system isn't going to alert the driver to take over?
- BoorishBears 3y agoYou are guaranteed 12 or so seconds to take over. That means the system can handle anything, from moving over from emergency vehicles to unexpected debris while you take over
- kingspact 3y ago[flagged]
- thibran 3y agoA PR lie. Watch a Tesla FSD 12.3.4 video, then one of Mercedes and see for yourself.
- tempestn 3y agoTesla requires the driver to pay attention to the road at all times, even with "FSD". (And having tried it, you would definitely want to do so.) This system does not have that requirement, on roads where it's supported. What's the lie?
- thibran 3y agoThey are misleading the public in thinking that Mercedes is a leader in autonomous driving, but they are not. They are, including all other legacy car companies, so far behind Tesla, that they should be ashamed.
- lesuorac 3y agoWhich video? Tesla still has this one [1] up where the "not required driver" had to save the vehicle after it ran off the road into fences and etc numerous times [2] [3]. [1]: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot https://www.tesla.com/autopilot [2]: https://www.classaction.org/media/matsko-v-tesla-inc-et-al.pdf https://www.classaction.org/media/matsko-v-tesla-inc-et-al.p... [3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilot-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilo...
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoFSD ver. 12 is a massive improvement over ver. 11, but not something I'd want to trust my life on. The vision system alone is reason not to trust it (it's just a "multiple choice" image classifier). The actual driving in ver. 12 (now neural net vs C++) looks much smoother. The continuing problem is that at the end of the day these are just rule-based systems with zero intelligence. They'll work fine 99.9% of the time, and then do something life-threateningly inappropriate in the 0.1% of cases they were not trained to handle. The only way to make these things as safe as a human driver is to base them on human-level AGI, which is still a long ways off in the future. I don't know if Musk is planning to add his Grok "AI" into the mix, but having a hallucinating chatbot as backup system or driver is not my idea of safety.
- nsxwolf 3y agoSo I have to be ready to react to a mistake the car is making, not having any insight into the thought process of the car. I have to be a constantly vigilant backseat driver. Am I on the hook for accidents?
- tempestn 3y agoIn theory the point of this system, unlike level 2 systems, is that you _don't_ need to do that. Of course, not having used it, I can't comment on how successful it is.
- ra7 3y agoThis is L3, so you don’t have to constantly supervise like you do a Tesla with FSD (L2). Mercedes even says you can watch movies or read books. They will achieve a minimum safety condition on their own, which for this system is stopping in the lane with hazard lights on. They also say they will take liability provided you haven’t misused the system or failed to properly maintain the car. But L3 has this grey area where you can be notified to take over with sufficient time. IMO, It’s the most ambiguous level of automation. How this will work in practice, I have no idea.
- dingnuts 3y agoam I the only one in the comment section that thinks this sounds great for commuting in heavy traffic at low speeds, which is the absolute most miserable type of driving? ya sound of an alarm when we get through the traffic and I can actually drive, fine with me, I'll play on my phone
- kwhitefoot 3y agoWhat I read is that you have to be able to take over within ten seconds. That's not very long if you have become absorbed in something else.
- Gud 3y ago10 seconds is absolutely a long enough time to context switch
- ra7 3y agoIt operates under such specific conditions, it’s not very useful right now. Unless you spend a large part of your commute on clogged California highways, there’s not a big use case. But Mercedes would be hoping to expand that operational design domain (ODD). Ultimately, I don’t think their L3 technology is the groundbreaking part (I think they use Nvidia Drive). It’s that they are willing to take liability inside their ODD. This will be a good experiment to see how liability shakes out for an automaker putting it in the hands of customers to be used conditionally vs someone like Waymo who doesn’t want anyone in the driver’s seat at all.
- pavlov 3y ago> “commute on clogged California highways” It’s embarrassing for Tesla because they pretended they had this solved and practically ready to ship eight years ago, started taking customer money; still take customer money on promises of “Real Soon Now”; and yet it’s a bunch of staid old Germans who actually ship it.
- heyoni 3y agoI’m so glad I didn’t fall for it. Nearly bought one, then took it for a test drive at the dealership and it couldn’t even make a left turn correctly. Then I rented one on another trip because I wanted to test it more extensively and the car locked up because I activated some stupid easter egg that started playing a song with an animated gif all over the screen…even getting out of the car and locking it didn’t stop the damn thing and I literally just had to sit on the side of the road and wait it out. The weird thing is I haven’t been able to find that easter egg mentioned anywhere.
- kmacdough 3y agoI'd hold off on the complements, we haven't seen the Mercedes on the road yet.
- drivingmenuts 3y agoEven if the self-driving bit sucks, you're still getting a pretty decent car, which is more than Tesla should be allowed to claim.
- petermcneeley 3y agoCongrats to Mercedes but I wonder if we could have had autonomous interstate travel in the 90s.
- adrianN 3y agoUnlikely given the computation required for this feature.
- petermcneeley 3y agoHighways are well defined spaces. You wouldnt need much computation at all.
- adrianN 3y agoIt's the edge cases that are difficult.
- petermcneeley 3y agoThat is why it is highway driving only. This is no different than aircraft autopilot of the 90s.
- wolfram74 3y agothere were a couple automated urban lines in pre-90s. If we hadn't cannibalized the inter-urban trolley cars for public roads but private rails in the 1920s, who knows what would have happened.
- syntaxing 3y agoI work on L3 technology but my opinion is of my own and not my employers. It’s laughable how people think FSD is better than L3 as of today. If it is, then why doesn’t Tesla sell it as one? The big difference is liability, can you play on your phone legally and safely while the car drives itself when autonomy is engaged? If so, it’s L3. If not, it’s L2.