The CEO of Mercedes-Benz’s North American R&D operation want to remind you that right this moment, proper now, certainly one of his firm’s sellers will promote you the one automobile with a licensed automated driving help system that can allow you to absolutely take your fingers off the steering wheel and your eyes off the street.
You simply need to stay in California or Nevada and be driving throughout the daytime and with clear climate, on permitted highways with clear lane markings, in “average to heavy visitors” and at 40 mph or beneath. You even have to have the ability to afford an S-Class or EQS Sedan, however that sort of goes with out saying. That is fairly a number of caveats.
Nonetheless, there are causes for these limitations, each internally at Mercedes and externally, R&D CEO Philipp Skogstad informed me earlier this month on the MOVE America mobility convention in Austin.
“With Degree 3 [automated driving], we’re, right this moment, nonetheless the one ones who’ve [a Society of Automotive Engineers] licensed system out on the street,” Skogstad mentioned. “And from what we have now thus far, understood from the authorities, there’s no one else in even making use of for that let. So proper now we expect we’re the chief.
Skogstad added, “There could also be others who’re getting headlines or suggesting that they’re additional alongside, however thus far, we’re the one ones with Degree 3 certification.”
Philipp Skogstad, Mercedes-Benz
Like every good automobile firm govt, Skogstad did not point out any rivals by identify. However it’s clear to anybody with ears or eyes recently that Tesla is attempting to place itself because the chief in AI-powered automated driving, one thing that CEO Elon Musk has been promising and to this point failing to ship for a decade.
Whereas Tesla has a approach of dominating conversations within the automotive tech house, gamers like Google’s Waymo, trucking firm Aurora and plenty of China-based companies have all made important strides in testing and even transporting folks with absolutely driverless automobiles.
These turquoise lights point out that Drive Pilot is engaged.
Mercedes’ Drive Pilot system is just not, in fact, absolutely driverless. However proper now, it’s the solely system in America that can automate the driving expertise underneath these particular circumstances above and never require the driving force to have a look at the street or put their fingers on the wheel. Ultimately, and pending full approval within the states the place Drive Pilot is permitted, a set of distinctive turquoise lights activate to inform different drivers that it is working in that mode.
The overwhelming majority of ADAS features in automobiles require a driver’s fingers to be on the wheel; a rising subject of others, together with Common Motors’ Tremendous Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise, permit a driver to go hands-off offered {that a} sensor detects their eyes and a spotlight are on the street.
These so-called Degree 2 programs, whereas rising in quantity and recognition, are a supply of controversy on their very own. Many critics say they lull people right into a false sense of safety that leaves the driving force too distracted and unprepared to intervene and doubtlessly avert an accident at a second’s discover. Furthermore, it is value noting that a few of them simply aren’t superb, typically battling fundamental features like staying in a lane.
A Mercedes EQS with Drive Pilot requests that the driving force takes over management.
After which there are the final dangers of automating driving. Even because it prepares to launch a so-called “Cybercab” and potential robotaxi service which may be akin to Waymo, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) expertise has drawn virtually no finish of controversy. FSD might be engaged for driving in metropolis streets, and whereas proponents say it has improved markedly with latest updates, different critics say its reliance on digital camera imaginative and prescient alone leaves it susceptible to creating too many errors. Opponents combine LIDAR, radar and different sensors to enhance spatial consciousness and supply redundancy.
Others say that Tesla’s religion in synthetic intelligence to coach and management FSD could also be misplaced given what a nascent subject AI is—and the way we’re nonetheless struggling to grasp what selections an AI might select to make and why. And FSD remains to be technically a “beta” system. Whereas it isn’t finalized but, it has been foisted upon peculiar Tesla homeowners, different drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and anything which may be in its path. Highway customers don’t have to decide in to the beta to be affected by it.
Skogstad mentioned that strategy wasn’t within the playing cards for Mercedes. Actually, he mentioned, “harmful” is the alternative of what Mercedes is attempting to do. “We’re placing plenty of expertise into the automobile to make it safer,” he mentioned. “And the Drive Pilot system is one other step to creating it safer.”
That is inherent within the expertise at work on automobiles geared up with Drive Pilot. The Mercedes sedans use radar, LIDAR, cameras, a sensor suite and an antenna array to automate driving. They’ve moisture sensors to detect whether or not rain will intrude with the programs, a rear-facing digital camera that picks up on emergency lights, and programs to detect whether or not you are sleeping or unable to take over sooner or later.
That is additionally why it is not low-cost. Drive Pilot is a subscription service that prices $2,500 per 12 months. However Skogstad informed me it’s a necessity for Mercedes’ strategy: It is not nearly capitalizing on this expertise however delivering one thing that can someday be absolutely safer than a human driver.
“There’s a increased threshold for automated driving than for human driving when it comes to security,” he mentioned. “You and I could make errors [behind the wheel.] However Mercedes software program can not make a mistake.” And that features coaching AI to not repeat the identical errors people may make too, he mentioned. “We use AI to research sure conditions after which prepare [the system] how we’d deal with such conditions, fairly than that particular scenario… we’re not interfering in actual time [with how] the automobile behaves,” he mentioned.
That additionally consists of not pushing out over-the-air software program updates that would make a automobile act in another way than it did the day gone by, he mentioned—one thing that has been a problem with Tesla’s automobiles. (Skogstad declined to touch upon Tesla particularly.)
Apart from, whereas the U.S. authorized system hasn’t been absolutely examined for all ADAS outcomes but, it is usually accepted {that a} human driver is accountable for minding a Degree 2 system. For a Degree 3 system, the producer is, Skogstad mentioned. And clearly, Mercedes-Benz is not as apt as some to take such dangers with its shoppers or its personal company legal responsibility.
In that approach, it is an virtually night-and-day strategy to what Tesla is doing. One automaker is protecting its system as gradual and maybe restricted as doable, whereas one other is evolving what it may possibly do as a public beta take a look at.
However in principle, being this cautious may put a “chief” like Mercedes behind the curve if one other participant have been to evolve extra rapidly. Skogstad mentioned he is much less nervous about that as a result of the top aim is not some sort of robotaxi service run by Mercedes, however merely giving prospects a extra luxurious expertise behind the wheel. Which means giving them “their time again” on lengthy freeway drives.
Within the meantime, nonetheless, one factor that holds that up is identical problem practically each participant within the autonomy house has gripes about: America’s patchwork, state-by-state strategy to regulating this expertise. Working carefully with state regulators and public security officers to get permits for Drive Pilot has its perks, he mentioned, but it surely does restrict Mercedes’ growth capability.
“What I might love is that if I may have that one regulation certification in all states,” Skogstad mentioned. “We consider in [this technology’s] profit for our prospects, and we would like them to have the ability to get pleasure from that expertise no matter the place they’re and no matter the place they are going. In the event that they’re doing a street journey from LA to Houston, why have it solely work in California?”
Contact the writer: patrick.george@insideevs.com
Correction: An earlier model of this story implied the U.S. Mercedes Drive Pilot automobiles use turquoise lights proper now when the system is engaged; Mercedes has obtained approval to be used in Nevada with MY 2026 and for testing in California. We remorse the error.
