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Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

fortune.com

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Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#21

Post by homefree »

harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

Waymo is amazing and has fully replaced Uber for me in SF. They're also expanding to the entire peninsula from SF down to Cupertino - you're out of date on this.

Waymo driving in SF is way better than human. It's not timid either.

This Mercedes post is marketing - it's not really what people consider autonomous given the constraints.

> "Drivers can activate Mercedes's technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven't been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states."

The above makes it nearly useless and far less useful than what Tesla has been shipping for years imo.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#22

Post by electrondood »

harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

"potential in the space?"

If you read the article, they essentially just have Tesla Autopilot with self insurance and driver monitoring removed.

This "landmark achievement" only works on freeways and under 40 mph.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#23

Post by mlyle »

kgwgk wrote: post #18
pound wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why Waymo is considered to be not living up to expectations? They operate in limited number of places, but seem to be just fine driving there (of course some people will not like them regardless). Tesla - yes, not comparable..

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/report-waymo-aiming-to-... "Even if Waymo's schedule slips a few months and it introduces a self-driving car service in the middle of 2018 instead of late 2017, that will still give the company a multiple-year head start over most of its rivals. And it would confound skeptics who insist that full self-driving technology is still years away." https://www.ft.com/content/3355f5b0-539…

Sure, everyone knows Waymo's schedule has slipped.

I read the comment as saying that Waymo's product itself is not living up to expectations.

It looks like it's slowly but steadily expanding, at least in sunnier climes, and offering a decent user experience.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#24

Post by mongol »

kuschku wrote: post #5
superkuh wrote: post #2

2 out of 50 states is technically the USA, I guesss. Hopefully it can pass the driving tests in California and Nevada.

Mercedes takes all legal responsibility for any accidents caused during autonomous operation. So far, autonomous operation is limited to relatively few situations, but most importantly it includes traffic jams (which is where human drivers quickly lose focus).

Who will be in line for jail sentences if it comes to that?

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#25

Post by [deleted] »

pound wrote: post #14
harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

I'm curious why Waymo is considered to be not living up to expectations? They operate in limited number of places, but seem to be just fine driving there (of course some people will not like them regardless). Tesla - yes, not comparable..

[deleted]

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#26

Post by _xivi »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #12
harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

What are you referring to with Waymo? They were still operating in LA and SF as of this week. Do you mean Cruise (owned by GM)? In any case, the Mercedes system is what's known as a conditionally autonomous system. It can drive itself under specific conditions, but a human is still involved in operating the vehicle as soon as it exits that design domain. Waymo (and Cruise) are fully autonomous systems. Humans are not…

> What are you referring to with Waymo?

No OP but there were multiple headlines of Waymo incidents just recently

- https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/13/waymo-recall-crash-softwar...

- https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/7/24065063/waymo-driverless-...

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#27

Post by rsynnott »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #10

The first actually autonomous car (under very specific circumstances) sold to the general consumer should be a historic day for Mercedes US, and the auto industry as a whole. But there doesn't seem to be even a press release on mbusa.com?

There was a bit of press a few years back when they got approval in Germany, but I’d imagine that Mercedes might be reluctant to bet the farm on this or link it to their public image; self driving cars have not, ah, exactly been an unqualified success thus far, and raising expectations could come back to bite them later.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#28

Post by haswell »

electrondood wrote: post #19

> Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. So this isn't any more of an advancement than Tesla's autopilot, which has been standard in every car for years. Basically if Tesla decided to self-insure when autopilot is eng…

> The cars aren't autonomous at all

Isn’t this just a swing of the pendulum to a similarly misleading extreme?

Somewhere between “this car is autonomous” and “not autonomous at all” lies the truth of the matter.

These cars have the capability of driving autonomously under specific conditions. If you drive a lot under those conditions, this functionality may be compelling.

Comparing this to cruise control (the automatic variety of which has been available for many years at this point) also seems quite misleading.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#29

Post by kgwgk »

mlyle wrote: post #23
kgwgk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/report-waymo-aiming-to-... "Even if Waymo's schedule slips a few months and it introduces a self-driving car service in the middle of 2018 instead of late 2017, that will still give the company a multiple-year head start over most of its rivals. And it would confound skeptics who insist that full self-driving technology is still years away." https://www.ft.com/content/3355f5b0-539…

Sure, everyone knows Waymo's schedule has slipped. I read the comment as saying that Waymo's product itself is not living up to expectations. It looks like it's slowly but steadily expanding, at least in sunnier climes, and offering a decent user experience.

Ok, maybe the as-of-2024 product is living up to the 2018-horizon expectations from 2017 (as long as your expectations were not at the high end of the range at the time).

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#30

Post by harles »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #12
harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

What are you referring to with Waymo? They were still operating in LA and SF as of this week. Do you mean Cruise (owned by GM)? In any case, the Mercedes system is what's known as a conditionally autonomous system. It can drive itself under specific conditions, but a human is still involved in operating the vehicle as soon as it exits that design domain. Waymo (and Cruise) are fully autonomous systems. Humans are not…

Waymo and Cruise have failed to scale and it doesn't look like they ever will. It's difficult to find a single article with the full context, but around 2017 as Waymo started giving limited rides to the public, everyone though the problem had been solved. There was a flood of startups hoping to be a strong second mover in the space, and then basically nothing. Expectations have shifted over time, but 7 years later and there's been only small incremental progress.

> In any case, the Mercedes system is what's known as a conditionally autonomous system.

Yes, but it's significant progress if it reaches consumer hands. This sounds like the typical Waymo marketing of "you can't get to Level 4 through Level 3". I bought into this at one point, but Waymo and Cruise have demonstrated that going straight to Level 4 with $100k+ (probably much more than that) of sensors and corresponding maintenance doesn't scale.

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