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Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

theregister.com

21–30 of 778 posts

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#21
post #15

Level 2 FULL self driving is way harder of a problem than location limited, condition limited, maneuver limited, speed limited level 3 so to me it is hilarious to call Tesla beat in any sense of the word. 40mph single lane travel during clear skies and daytime down certain highways can be done by any number of naive driver assistants from many manufacturers. Tesla's autopilot from 2015 could certainly accomplish that…

You really think there’s no engineering difference between system that’s designed to actively kill you, and others if you don’t pay attention vs system that’s designed not to do it, and company putting their money behind that statement?

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#22
post #3

... only when driving under 40 mph on highways. So it is pretty useless. The main thing is that Mercedes Benz will take liability for anything that goes wrong. But the system as a whole is far less capable than Tesla FSD.

Only on CERTAIN highways if it's daytime and it's not raining.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#23
post #6

"Conditionally automated driving: Mercedes-Benz DRIVE PILOT further expands U.S. availability to the country’s" - https://media.mercedes-benz.com/article/81a29ac5-4d02-4b58-b... ”Mercedes-Benz DRIVE PILOT is the world's only SAE Level 3 system with internationally valid type approval. It builds on a very robust foundation, setting new industry standards. DRIVE PILOT uses a highly sophisticated vehicle architecture ba…

It's also worth pointing out that this is an extremely limited system:

> On suitable freeway sections and where there is high traffic density, DRIVE PILOT can offer to take over the dynamic driving task, up to speeds of 40 mph.

Basically, this will follow the car in front of you in slow freeway traffic. It won't navigate, it won't even change lanes. It won't work (and it's not clear to me how it disengages) when traffic speeds up.

That's not useless. There's a reasonable argument that this is the product the market wants. But the "Germans beat Tesla" framing here is really quite spun. Autonomy and capability aren't the same thing.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#24

Headlines like this really speed up the decline of media. While it is factual it really exploits what a common person would interpret the headline to mean. Tesla is exploring autonomous driving on most roads and conditions. L3 autonomous driving is not binary, you can get it at certain times, in certain places, under certain weather conditions yet the comparison is anchoring it to a system that isn't aiming to operat…

Mercedes shipped a system that’s legally self driving, under some set of conditions.

Tesla sells system that’s not legally self driving under any set of conditions. You’re always driving, and Tesla will fight you in court if you want them to take liability for any action it took.

There’s nothing misleading about this headline.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#25
post #15

Level 2 FULL self driving is way harder of a problem than location limited, condition limited, maneuver limited, speed limited level 3 so to me it is hilarious to call Tesla beat in any sense of the word. 40mph single lane travel during clear skies and daytime down certain highways can be done by any number of naive driver assistants from many manufacturers. Tesla's autopilot from 2015 could certainly accomplish that…

You really think there’s no engineering difference between system that’s designed to actively kill you, and others if you don’t pay attention vs system that’s designed not to do it, and company putting their money behind that statement?

You really think Mercedes legal filings guarantee a safer system? It is more important to focus on the technical capabilities of the systems than who can add more asterisks to their crash statistics.

You are comparing a mature system with billions of miles of testing to a system which you will struggle to keep engaged for 2 mile intervals.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#26
post #9

L3 is profoundly unwise. L3 can disengage at any moment. The attention required of the human in order to drive safely exceeds that required in L2, and is much more difficult to maintain.

I don't know that it's "unwise"; that depends on failure rate.

But it's absolutely true that the practical difference between "human must supervise" and "human must be ready to take over" is MUCH smaller than people want it to be. Mostly everyone wants to yell about Elon Musk and "2 vs. 3" is ammunition.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#27
post #18
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Mercedes-Benz S-Class DRIVE PILOT Sensors Details" - https://youtu.be/9m-VS55w9HA - LiDAR - Radar - Cameras - Ultrasonic sensor - Road moisture sensor Curious how this collection of sensor compares with Tesla and also with run of the mill cars with ACC / lane keeping.

https://youtu.be/BFdWsJs6z4c

I'm aware of Elon's opinion: "LiDAR is lame. LiDAR is lame. Lame. Losers use LiDAR. LiDAR is expensive."

I can't stomach watching a video that starts out like that.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#28

Headlines like this really speed up the decline of media. While it is factual it really exploits what a common person would interpret the headline to mean. Tesla is exploring autonomous driving on most roads and conditions. L3 autonomous driving is not binary, you can get it at certain times, in certain places, under certain weather conditions yet the comparison is anchoring it to a system that isn't aiming to operat…

[flagged]

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#29
It doesn’t take a lot to retro-fit roads with autonomous guardrail markers when we repave. It’s going to take a federal-level effort to accomplish this (which should have been apart of pandemic infrastructure stimulus).

I strongly believe this would improve safety for autonomous vehicles by 1000x.

Re: Mercedes beats Tesla to autonomous driving in California

#30
post #3

... only when driving under 40 mph on highways. So it is pretty useless. The main thing is that Mercedes Benz will take liability for anything that goes wrong. But the system as a whole is far less capable than Tesla FSD.

That's all enforced by the government, it's not a limitation of the system. They might be comfortable with liability for more than this but are not allowed to by regulators - which is wise
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