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Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

thedetroitbureau.com

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Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#51
post #2

If tesla still has issues with self-driving cars and they are like a decade if not more ahead of everyone else. I dont believe this PR stunt.

Tesla and Elon Musk are lying through their teeth every option they get. They can't even detect stationary emergency vehicles ffs.. Mercedes is accepting liability whenever their self driving system is engaged, meaning their insurance is on the hook. So I think they're pretty damn certain that it will work as intended.

In my uninformed estimation, I think Elon, like a lot of us 7-8 years ago, saw the recent advances in deep learning and figured they'd be capable of anything in a few years. You just need to scale them up and train the shit out of them and out pops self driving. Some of us have since repented but Tesla made too many promises so they've got to keep pushing that narrative or they become just another car company.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#53
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Teslas driven by fleeing fugitives, OJ Simpson style, can't be remotely commandeered or disabled, then I have a bridge to sell you. Geofencing is a big part of the dystopia that the Valley crowd is getting paid a small fortune to shove down our throats.

OJ Simpson, the man that the police forced to stop fleeing under threat of deadly violence? Are you trying to scare people that their car may be disabled, when those same people already live in a society where police shoot and kill and pit maneuver drivers? Wouldn't you rather have the car stop safely, instead of being pit maneuvered and flipped into a ditch?

>Are you trying to scare people that their car may be disabled, when those same people already live in a society where police shoot and kill and pit maneuver drivers?

Scare? No.

I'm just pointing out that, just as pervasive corporate surveillance is now the norm on the internet, pervasive tracking and always-on kill switches for cars will soon become the new norm. Law enforcement will paint it exactly as you have done here, with all the pearl-clutching and "think of the children"-type arguments that always accompany a new overstep/affront against civil liberties.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#54

Meanwhile in Jerusalem https://youtu.be/pDyMzz8HMIc

Kind of skeptical about how all the shots are only from night-drives, probably when traffic is the lowest.

Didn't Tesla release a somewhat similar video, showing a Tesla driving across the US?

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#55

Is it still designed to mow down pedestrians? https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15344706/self-driving-mer... Mercedes ethics: Save the people who can afford lawyers.

Although it's pretty clear you don't care about an answer to your question - it's only designed to operate on highways.

Their plan (as it was in 2016) is to eventually have full self driving everywhere. Presumably the fundamental decisions they make now will carry forward.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#56
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if 40mph is a magic number that is a good tradeoff between speed and survivability (and injury-related out-of-court settlements)

That threshold is generally considered to be 20mph. Below that speed pedestrian injuries are unlikely to be fatal. It's what urban speed limits are in Sweden, and they average about one pedestrian death a year in the entire country.

20mph is considered to be good for survivability, but is not really good from a speed/travel perspective.

I believe OP meant maybe 40mph is a good balance between the two factors of speed (higher is better) and survivability (higher is better) from a corporate risk / insurance perspective.

Raising one of these lowers the other - so the actual threshold depends on how you value speed / convenience vs accident survivability / risk, and what you want to market your car as able to do (few consumers will see a 20mph self-drive speed limit as a viable self driving system).

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#57

"it's geofenced to certain roads, and only work under 40mph", " you should not use this in the rain" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMNnOosjrBo&ab_channel=Engad...

> "Geofenced" That's the word. That's the plan. We will be geofenced, there will be a kill switch. You will not be able to go where you want, except if the government allows it. In fact, I think Uber is the best example of geofencing we have for the long run. In the medium term, self-driving cars you still own will fill the gap.

Don't worry, at least in a Tesla the geofencing is going to be disabled in datetime.now().year + 1

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a pretty big leap there from "our experimental self-driving mode only works inside the geofence" to "the government won't let you drive where you want".

Yes, a huge leap. I can't possibly imagine that government would pass legislation that all the automakers would comply with. /s https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/biden-infrastructure-bil... "Deep within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was signed into law by President Joe Biden is a passage that will require automakers to begin including what can be best summarized as a “vehicle kill switch” within t…

Additional Context:

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-402773429497

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#59
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think Teslas driven by fleeing fugitives, OJ Simpson style, can't be remotely commandeered or disabled, then I have a bridge to sell you. Geofencing is a big part of the dystopia that the Valley crowd is getting paid a small fortune to shove down our throats.

The idea that this is the “valley crowd” is laughable. Most of this bs is not built in the valley, and most people in the Bay Area don’t like that kind of dystopia either.

>Most of this bs is not built in the valley, and most people in the Bay Area don’t like that kind of dystopia either.

Well, certainly it's Bay Area companies leading the charge towards said dystopia. Google and Facebook come immediately to mind as far as villains in this particular plot.

Re: Mercedes-Benz says Level 3 self-driving option ready to roll

#60

While the specs sound very underwhelming at first (geo-fenced on some roads, very low speeds, no bad weather), they seem to be so confident in their system, that they will take responsibility for the car when in autopilot. AFAIK, no other manufacturer does this for their systems (which capabilities they often make rather wild claims about).

Just from a management perspective, even if you're super-confident in your engineers (which you shouldn't be), doing anything other than a very limited slow roll out would be negligent. This is a tectonic shift in liability. It's one thing if you sell 1,000,000 cars and 100,000 get in an accident. It's actually much worse to sell 10,000 cars and 1,000 of them get in an accident and the company is liable.
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