Mercedes-Benz gets world’s first approval for automated driving system

[Lightwreather]

Summary

On Thursday, Mercedes-Benz became the world's first automaker to gain regulatory approval for a so-called "level 3" self-driving system, perhaps better called a "conditionally automated driving system." It's called Drive Pilot, and it debuts next year in the new S-Class and EQS sedans, allowing the cars to drive themselves at up to 37 mph (60 km/h) in heavy traffic on geofenced stretches of highway.

Note: I will be emboldening metric units because it is the superior system

Quotes

Quote

The new system is true automated driving as opposed to driver assistance. It uses a combination of radar, cameras, lidar, microphones (to detect emergency vehicles), and a moisture sensor, plus the car's high-accuracy GNSS, which locates the car on an HD map.

When engaged, Drive Pilot takes over managing situational awareness. As a result, the system can handle unexpected traffic situations and can take evasive action if necessary. Drivers really can turn their minds—and their eyes—to something else, unlike with (the still-level 2) Super Cruise system from General Motors.

However, the operational design domain is even more tightly controlled than Super Cruise—like GM's system, Drive Pilot will function only on premapped, geofenced, closed-access highways, and it will operate only at speeds of up to 37 mph (60 km/h).

Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority has been satisfied that the system is safe and has granted Mercedes-Benz approval to deploy Drive Pilot in the first half of 2022. Germany's approval opens up a pathway for similar approval in the rest of the European Union, as well as Korea, Japan, Australia, and the UK.

 

My thoughts

Well, Apparently we now have fuller-but-not-full "full self-driving". It's limited to 60 km/h and on fenced highways. Now this begs the question, where do you find fenced 60 km/h highways? Where I'm at most highways have speed limit of about 100-120 km/h, but I don't know the highways of germany so, who knows there might be such highways there. Well, here's to hoping that eventually we will reach CGP Grey's true solution to traffic as I for one welcome our new robot overlords. /s But as usal we'll have to wait and see how it pans out.

 

Sources

ArsTechnica

[RejZoR]

What "highway" has 60km/h limit lol? I know it varies between countries, but in my country most "highways" are between 90 and 130km/h... Even regular roads outside residential areas are pretty much always above 60km/h.

 

It's also funny it's Mercedes and not Tesla. Tesla was bragging about it all the time and after bunch of freak crashes all went silent. And then real innovator, Mercedes comes along...

[CTR640]

2 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

What "highway" has 60km/h limit lol? I know it varies between countries, but in my country most "highways" are between 90 and 130km/h... Even regular roads outside residential areas are pretty much always above 60km/h.

 

It's also funny it's Mercedes and not Tesla. Tesla was bragging about it all the time and after bunch of freak crashes all went silent. And then real innovator, Mercedes comes along...

A highway only used by grannies? lol

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Lmfao 60km is granny driver speed

 

"hElLo Im A gRaNnY dRiVeR aNd I lIkE tO dRiVe So sLoW oN a HiGhWaY tHaT iTs AcTuAlLy DaNgErOuS tO bE dRiViNg ThIs SlOw"

 

lol lowest ive seen for speed limit is like 80kmh on a highway so driving at 60kmh is prob more dangerous than driving a more sensible speed like 80kmh, or atleast pisses ppl off

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

and on fenced highways

Just checking that this you are joking about this part right?

 

Anyways, for those who aren't even bothering to read the first paragraph of the article, it's intended for traffic conditions (not the typical highway driving).

 

Honestly, its like the only difference here is that GM's super cruise still requires the driver to pay attention on the highway...which also has the downside that it can't handle tighter highway corners.

 

All in all, it's nothing really to write home about, a company created a vehicle where they eliminated the need for the driver to pay attention in a limited scenario.  Realistically Tesla's autopilot (not even including their FSD) is leaps and bounds ahead of a vehicle limited to geofenced and also 60km/h.

 

Pre-mapped highways as well doesn't really feel authentic either...I mean Super Cruise only has like 200k miles of roadway you are allowed to use it on.  All these kinds of things are doing is putting in a badge of honor so they can claim they were the "first", while not advancing technology really.

[Lightwreather]

7 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Just checking that this you are joking about this part right?

Well sort of:

1 hour ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

However, the operational design domain is even more tightly controlled than Super Cruise—like GM's system, Drive Pilot will function only on premapped, geofenced, closed-access highways

 

[Kronoton]

8 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Realistically Tesla's autopilot (not even including their FSD) is leaps and bounds ahead of a vehicle limited to geofenced and also 60km/h.

 

 

Wouldn't say so as the MB system's approval means that a driver can take his eyes off the road without violating traffic laws something that Tesla still hasn't achieved and might still be a decade or more out.

 

Neither is a real "Auto pilot" and both are going in that direction from different angles.

[ebprince the computer nerd]

Bruh, 60km maximum ON HIGHWAYS? 60km to miles for the people in the US is about 38mph. That is slower than some back roads over here. We have a speed limit on most highways of 65-70mph, or about 104 to 122km.

[BondiBlue]

I'm confused by some of the responses here. Did everyone miss the "heavy traffic" part? It's only for use in slow moving traffic. 

[aDoomGuy]

11 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

I'm confused by some of the responses here. Did everyone miss the "heavy traffic" part? It's only for use in slow moving traffic. 

Seems like it. Maybe they don't live in congested areas.

[DildorTheDecent]

19 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

Did everyone miss the "heavy traffic" part? It's only for use in slow moving traffic. 

Certified LTT moment.

[Quackers101]

Since it can't go above 60, does it mean it can't react to things well or something? Hope its even good enough for 60, also if it does have the tech for longer range reaction like with LiDAR or something similar. but if they do (which I guess was stated), the cost and why it can't do higher speed?

(also we don't know what "heavy traffic" means, in higher speed this could mean more than a 1-3 cars)

[Kronoton]

3 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

if it's very limited, it should be used for taxies only and in-city at most

<insert facepalm emoji here>

 

Nope, it is a system that lets you "float" through traffic jams on the highway without breaking any laws.

As such it is a true 1st.

 

I'm pretty sure they are working on it to be legal in normal Autobahn traffic (lets say up to 120km/h on right and middle lanes) as a next step.

 

Cities or country roads are far to chaotic for it to work with extreme reliability (needed for the "driver can legally snooze of" part).

[Beerzerker]

2 hours ago, CTR640 said:

A highway only used by grannies? lol

Probrably a road intended for these from the sound of it.

 

[RejZoR]

50 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

so in short more of a PR stunt?

how much did they pay for this?

 

Since it can't go above 60, does it mean it can't react to things well or something? Hope its even good enough for 60, also if it does have the tech for longer range reaction like with LiDAR or something similar. but if they do (which I guess was stated), the cost and why it can't do higher speed?

(also we don't know what "heavy traffic" means, in higher speed this could mean more than a 1-3 cars)

 

if it's very limited, it should be used for taxies only and in-city at most. Which kind of defeats it's "first approved self driving" in my eyes and that we would already have such systems and cars already for lower speed zones. Also if it works in every environment.

Tesla's promises of fully autonomous driving are more of a PR stunt where Mercedes is not restricted by technical capabilities, but regulations. No one, especially not Mercedes wants PR in form of "Mercedes car rammed a road splitting barrier" like Tesla had several times...

[Quackers101]

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Tesla's promises of fully autonomous driving are more of a PR stunt where Mercedes is not restricted by technical capabilities, but regulations. No one, especially not Mercedes wants PR in form of "Mercedes car rammed a road splitting barrier" like Tesla had several times...

true, just thought of something else ranting away.

[jagdtigger]

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

pisses ppl off

If you are lucky, if not you end up in the ditch....

[Bensemus]

They aren’t the first. Audi had a very restricted lvl 3 platform before too. It also only worked on highways at below highway speed while in traffic and required a physical barrier between opposing traffic. These lvl 3 systems are basically useless and not that technically impressive with how restricted the conditions they work in are. 
 

Wayme, Tesla, and GM have impressive tech. Ford will get there but the demo of BlueCruse failing on the slightest of turns was pretty bad. Tesla and Waymo can navigate city street turns tighter than 90 degrees and Ford fails on large genital curves on highways. 

[Eaglerino]

5 hours ago, RejZoR said:

What "highway" has 60km/h limit lol? I know it varies between countries, but in my country most "highways" are between 90 and 130km/h... Even regular roads outside residential areas are pretty much always above 60km/h.

 

It's also funny it's Mercedes and not Tesla. Tesla was bragging about it all the time and after bunch of freak crashes all went silent. And then real innovator, Mercedes comes along...

Teslas do fine at low speeds, their freak crashes were at high speeds or people not paying attention when they were supposed to be. I guess the computers have a hard time telling a stationary from a moving object when you're going 75MPH+, but this is 37 which is below the minimum speed I drive to go to the store. Just seems like a marketing checkmark to me

[StDragon]

6 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It's also funny it's Mercedes and not Tesla. Tesla was bragging about it all the time and after bunch of freak crashes all went silent. And then real innovator, Mercedes comes along...

And what is the track record for Mercedes over that of Tesla? I'm actually expecting this to backfire on Mercedes hard. Time will tell, but I suspect they will have a higher incident rate over Tesla's current standing. 

[descendency]

If this existed here, it wouldn't be as bad to drive through LA (highway) traffic. Going the a distance that would usually take 30 minutes (like 30 miles) but takes 2 hours instead would be nice if I had a system that could do that for me. I get that this won't work in BFE, but it's still very useful in certain (incredibly terrible) situations. The next step is to go from 60 kmph to 90 kmph. ]

[PeachGr]

Highways in Germany, have a lane with no speed limit. Also known as Autobahn

[WolframaticAlpha]

13 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

I'm confused by some of the responses here. Did everyone miss the "heavy traffic" part? It's only for use in slow moving traffic. 

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/mercedes-beats-tesla-hands-free-driving-autobahn

To my understanding, it means that the Mercedes system can drive at 60 kmph on an autobahn. It isn't slow moving traffic, but the autobahn is supposed to be really high speed, so idk what to say.

[wanderingfool2]

13 hours ago, Kronoton said:

 

Wouldn't say so as the MB system's approval means that a driver can take his eyes off the road without violating traffic laws something that Tesla still hasn't achieved and might still be a decade or more out.

 

Neither is a real "Auto pilot" and both are going in that direction from different angles.

Getting an approval for something like that doesn't really mean much in terms of advancement.  It's literally limited to 60km/h and likely will be far behind what a Tesla is capable of.  My entire point is that it's pretty much like a publicity stunt, and in terms of new technology it's not really anything new.

 

Consider Blue Cruise as another example, it allows you to drive hands free (which a Tesla can't)...yet it has issues with bends in a highway.  The fact is, Tesla's can do more for you.  It's essentially like building a custom built system to drive in a specific condition; it doesn't mean much.  [Side note, have you seen any of the recent FSD beta videos...I'd say at least for limited circumstances it's fast approaching for "approved" sections of roads, if they wanted to]

 

Also, considering things like Waymo already has autonomous vehicles; it's not really saying much.

 

12 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Tesla's promises of fully autonomous driving are more of a PR stunt where Mercedes is not restricted by technical capabilities, but regulations. No one, especially not Mercedes wants PR in form of "Mercedes car rammed a road splitting barrier" like Tesla had several times...

The way their system works (from what I've gathered), my guess will be that it will only ever be capable of highway driving.  While I do think Tesla over promises, I do think their system will eventually win out in terms of overall performance.

 

15 hours ago, RejZoR said:

It's also funny it's Mercedes and not Tesla. Tesla was bragging about it all the time and after bunch of freak crashes all went silent. And then real innovator, Mercedes comes along...

No, they really never went silent...it's still talked about quite a bit.  It's like the Blue Cruise thing, it beat Tesla to "hands free" driving, yet is absurdly stupid in what it's capable of (and that's not even a restriction via regulation, but a restriction because they haven't got it working right).  Trust me, I'd rather at this moment driving with FSD and having to keep my hands on the wheel than Mercedes without hands (because it's going to have a lot more practicality)

[Mark Kaine]

17 hours ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

highways have speed limit of about 100-120 km/h, but I don't know the highways of germany so, who knows there might be such highways there

60kmh on German highway is nigh impossible,  its either 100kmh, 120kmh or no limit at all... meaning at 60 you're simply an obstacle and would probably get fined for dangerous driving...

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Just checking that this you are joking about this part right?

fenced highways could simply be sort of a misunderstanding... in Germany highways are *always* 'fenced' as in "guardrails" are mandatory,  its not a highway without those "rails",  even though of course we don't call them highway,  we call them autobahn which almost literally means "car rail" ... 

 

 

Edit: BTW whats the difference to say Waymo...? how is Mercedes the 'first'? The first for Slowmo autobahn maybe...