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Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

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Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#91

Post by paxys »

kogus wrote: post #9

When I see articles like this, I have this bet between Jeff Atwood and John Carmack in the back of my mind: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/

I have been on Jeff's side of this bet since they announced it. Level 5 is simply too high of a bar to reach in the next few years, and in fact we are going about it the wrong way. We need smart roads more than smart cars.

(Note that there's an escape hatch here, which is that the AI falls back to some human in a call center for guidance to get out of sticky situations. In my opinion that still doesn't qualify as level 5.)

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#92

Post by rsync »

jupp0r wrote: post #89
rsync wrote: post #87

Please, please drive your car. More than zero hands should be on the wheel and your eyes should be on the road. If you can't be bothered to do this, perhaps find another mode of transport.

Isn't the definition of level 3 that you don't have to do this? Is your point that the claim of level 3 readiness is false or that all autonomous driving is somehow inferior to non autonomous driving?

We can't handle mode switching in this manner.

If you are responsible for two tons of metal flying down the road at 70 mph you need to be fully engaged in that task.

We can handle being passengers and we can handle being drivers but we can't switch in a split second.

So my contention is that level-X where X is less than "I can fall asleep in the back seat" is a deadly valley between unassisted driving and passive passenger.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#93

Post by funcDropShadow »

Hamuko wrote: post #69
mrtksn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a branding issue. It was supposed to be a SV darling to do it first, not some legacy German carmaker. You can see significantly more negativity for non-SV tech, especially when they do something outside of the narrative. If it’s an electric car, should be batteries and not fuel cells for example. This is also one of the reasons why if a company wants to go big needs to move to SV. It looks much better wh…

In my mind it makes sense for Mercedes-Benz to be the first one to do this. There's probably a laundry list of automotive firsts that are associated with just the Mercedes-Benz S-Class.

You mean like the car itself?

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#94

Post by seadan83 »

geodel wrote: post #51
kortilla wrote: post #3

> According to the SAE levels of driving automation, a Level 3-capable vehicle can take over certain driving tasks, but a driver is still required to be present and ready to take control of the car at all times when prompted to intervene. The first part of the article mentions the driver being able to take a meeting or watch a movie. That’s complete horseshit if they need to be ready to take control of the car at all…

> The first part of the article mentions the driver being able to take a meeting or watch a movie. I think the idea here is that typical executive meetings ( which of course Mercedes owners would be) are monotonous and boring and it would not take more than 20% of your attention in any case. Roughly same for movies as it has to be Hollywood franchise movies which even if one is watching first time, it still feels lik…

It is 100% attention. The caveat is there is ample time after the car notifies you to take control where you put down your task, look around and gain situational awareness. How often that happens is a question. Seemingly rare enough you could reliably do a meeting, that latter part is just a presumption though.

No '*', Mercedes takes full responsibility and there are many seconds before it shifts control (and liability). The system can reliably predict when it will want to give back control.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#95

Post by oblio »

paxys wrote: post #91
kogus wrote: post #9

When I see articles like this, I have this bet between Jeff Atwood and John Carmack in the back of my mind: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/

I have been on Jeff's side of this bet since they announced it. Level 5 is simply too high of a bar to reach in the next few years, and in fact we are going about it the wrong way. We need smart roads more than smart cars. (Note that there's an escape hatch here, which is that the AI falls back to some human in a call center for guidance to get out of sticky situations. In my opinion that still doesn't qualify as lev…

> We need smart roads more than smart cars.

Then this is close to impossible :-)

The existing road infrastucture maintenance burden is already crushing financially, imagine if we add smart roads to it.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#96

Post by seadan83 »

emodendroket wrote: post #59
kortilla wrote: post #3

> According to the SAE levels of driving automation, a Level 3-capable vehicle can take over certain driving tasks, but a driver is still required to be present and ready to take control of the car at all times when prompted to intervene. The first part of the article mentions the driver being able to take a meeting or watch a movie. That’s complete horseshit if they need to be ready to take control of the car at all…

Right, these things seem worse than nothing if they're good enough to make you completely distracted, paying no attention to the road, but them dump control over to you the minute something unexpected happens.

That describes Tesla FSD, not this. Tesla does level 2 in more varied of situations, but that warning time before taking control is a very key difference. Enough that you can pay 0 attention to be able to look around and see what's up before taking control (vs, you're expected to swerve the car when it fails)

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#97

Post by oblio »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #90
mrtksn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a branding issue. It was supposed to be a SV darling to do it first, not some legacy German carmaker. You can see significantly more negativity for non-SV tech, especially when they do something outside of the narrative. If it’s an electric car, should be batteries and not fuel cells for example. This is also one of the reasons why if a company wants to go big needs to move to SV. It looks much better wh…

> It was supposed to be a SV darling to do it first, not some legacy German carmaker. I feel quite vindicated by this, because I've always been (perhaps irrationally) rather suspicious of Tesla. Software company suddenly decides to make 'luxury cars'? Cool story bro. My opinion is that the German triad (BMW, VW (and subsidiaries, including Porsche), Merc-Benz) may have lost some ground to Tesla when it comes to EVs a…

> My opinion is that the German triad (BMW, VW (and subsidiaries, including Porsche), Merc-Benz) may have lost some ground to Tesla when it comes to EVs and self-driving cars, but they have an immense mind- and market-share and will quickly recover lost ground. They have a pretty good engineering-first mentality, too.

Americans, SV and HN especially, are also oblivious to this.

The current VW CEO was just sent packing.

Why?

Software quality.

They know it's do or die and the level of investment into it is huge, they've been hiring software devs like crazy, in Germany.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#98

Post by spookie »

paxys wrote: post #91
kogus wrote: post #9

When I see articles like this, I have this bet between Jeff Atwood and John Carmack in the back of my mind: https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/

I have been on Jeff's side of this bet since they announced it. Level 5 is simply too high of a bar to reach in the next few years, and in fact we are going about it the wrong way. We need smart roads more than smart cars. (Note that there's an escape hatch here, which is that the AI falls back to some human in a call center for guidance to get out of sticky situations. In my opinion that still doesn't qualify as lev…

Same, I don't see it happening unless most cars in the road have the capabality of intercommunication to perform sensor fusion with other cars. This implies that everyone gets on board using the same protocol.

As for smart roads, what would these imply? Bear in mind maintenance costs and the fact that asphalt is 100% recycled and reusable.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#99

Post by lkrubner »

lkrubner wrote: post #2

It used to be common to point out that 1/3rd of all of the self-made multimillionaires in the USA eventually go bankrupt. I don't know what the current statistic is, but 20 years ago I studied the issue in some detail, and the pattern was: 1. entrepreneur sees an opportunity that no one else sees 2. entrepreneur takes some big risks to take advantage of the opportunity 3. entrepreneur becomes wealthy because they too…

Why did my comment get downvoted? I'm sharing something that I learned back when I was doing serious research about entrepreneurship, and I'm pointing out that it applies to Elon Musk, an observation which should be relevant to the conversation.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#100

Post by flakeoil »

cypress66 wrote: post #63
vadym909 wrote: post #39

So how does this compare with Tesla? Is what I’d want to know. These levels maybe ok for engineers . Consumers like me watch YouTube videos to tell how good a car is at self driving

This is an eyes off autonomy level. So you can read a book while it does its thing. It however only works in a very narrow set of conditions. Tesla doesn't have anything that's eyes off yet. You need to monitor the road. Tesla seems to be going for breadth first (FSD beta working everywhere and doing every manouver) and not depth (autonomy only for highway without changing lanes but reliable enough for eyes off)

If that's the case, then I think Mercedes chose the best option. It's when doing long drives on highways it's really useful to be able to read a book, work, play a board game with the passengers, talking in a focused way, nap etc.

It's most likely also much easier to make a car drive autonomously on highways versus on smaller roads, city roads, dirt roads etc.

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