They got an army of thousands of Indians to watch the road for you?
No, you’re thinking of Amazon.
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As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California, Fortune has learned through an open records request submitted to the state’s DMV. One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California, according to the DMV. Mercedes would not confirm sales numbers. Select Mercedes dealerships in Nevada are also offering the cars with the new technology, known as “level 3” autonomous driving.
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Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on spec ific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.
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U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500.
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Mercedes is also working on developing level 4 capabilities. The automaker’s chief technology officer Markus Schäfer expects that level 4 autonomous technology will be available to consumers by 2030, Automotive News reported.
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Hmm, so only on a very small number of predetermined routes, and at very slow speeds for those roads.
Still impressive, but not as impressive as the headline makes out.
Yes, but it’s actually level 3.
Not the Tesla “full self driving - no wait we actually lied to you, you need to be alert at all times” bullshit.
I’ve seen this headline a few times and the details are laughably bad. The only reason this can be getting any press is because the headline is good clickbait. But 40 mph top speed on approved roads in 2 states only if a car is in front of you in the daytime is entirely useless. I guess it’s a good first step maybe? But trying to write headlines like this is big news is sad.
The reason this gets attention is because it’s the first level 3 sold to consumers.
The tech is hard, of course it’s gonna start out with laughingly limited capabilities. But it’s the first step towards more automation.
Wonder how this works with car insurance. Os there a future where the driver doesn’t need to be insured? Can the vehicle software still be “at fault” and how will the actuaries deal with assessing this new risk.
I believe Mercedes takes responsibility if there is an accident while driving autonomously.
And this is how they will push everyone into driverless. Through insurance costs. Who would insure 1 human driver vs 100 bots, (once the systems have a few billion miles on them)
And that will probably be safer for everyone, honestly. Better or worse will vary by individual perspective.
It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out, with local city traffic being essentially reduced to all taxis and only the countryside 4x4 and farm vehicles being the last hold out of human control because of hilly terrain. Once the lorries go fully self-controlled (note: modern lorries have a lot of driver support aids as it is.) it’ll only be a matter of time.
Totally agree that car incidents will go down dramatically, some police forces will see their entire income disappear. Soo many changes that we can’t even imagine coming.
Farm vehicles are far more automated than any cars these days.
if it can drive a car why wouldn’t it be able to drive a truck?
I’m surprised companies don’t just build their own special highway for automated trucking and use people for last mile stuff.
They are testing them already. I only have a German article that came out this week https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/technologie/fahrerlose-lkw-man-test-autobahn-100.html
The truck division of Mercedes (Daimler) is already testing the trucks in the US. They plan commercial usage in 2027. MAN is testing in Europe in wants to start commercial usage in 2030.
How is this different from the capabilities of Tesla’s FSD, which is considered level 2? It seems like Mercedes just decided they’ll take on liability to classify an equivalent level 2 system as level 3.
It’s not about the sensors, it’s about the software. That’s the solution.
