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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.

#51

Post by suzakus »

bko wrote: post #48
AlotOfReading wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dollar or two more expensive than the corresponding Uber (non-shared) fare in my experience, so a bit less after tips. Keep in mind that the "true" price of these services probably isn't the biggest pricing factor right now. The cost is a way to manage demand, get some additional income, and investigate what the market will bear.

I doubt they're profitable though. From Bing: > As of the latest available information, Waymo is not yet profitable. Alphabet’s Q2 2023 earnings report indicated that its “Other Bets” category, which includes Waymo, had revenues of $285 million and an operating loss of $813 million. This was a decrease in operating loss from $1.34 billion in the second quarter of 2022, but still significant. Over the last five years,…

Nothing about that quote indicates that waymo loses money on marginal rides, rather that it loses money in aggregate which is not particularly surprising considering low overall volume , r&d overhead of both head count and things like cars and facilities to store said cars

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

#52

Post by MichaelZuo »

paxys wrote: post #13
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?

Considering there are grand total of 65 cars available for sale, it's obvious that the company is still testing the waters. There's no reason to do a massive PR push until they are ready and can scale production.

Those 65 cars could easily be >10% of all new S classes available on dealer lots in the two states, the majority of customers order custom made or order special chauffer variants.

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

#54

Post by tempestn »

thibran wrote: post #47

A PR lie. Watch a Tesla FSD 12.3.4 video, then one of Mercedes and see for yourself.

Tesla requires the driver to pay attention to the road at all times, even with "FSD". (And having tried it, you would definitely want to do so.) This system does not have that requirement, on roads where it's supported. What's the lie?

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

#55

Post by perryizgr8 »

bko wrote: post #32
homefree wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cond…

How is Waymo pricing compared to Uber or other ride share? I originally thought autonomous cars would greatly reduce costs but considering the tens of billions dumped into these companies, they can't charge lower prices as they have to recoup investments.

> originally thought autonomous cars would greatly reduce costs

In general, it's a mistake to think that selling price has anything to do with the costs. The price is simply what the market will bear. If people are paying Uber $x for a service, waymo would be stupid to price the same service much lower than that. If their costs are much lower, they would rather make that much more profit. If the rider wants a small piece of that pie they can invest in the business (via stocks in the case of Google).

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

#56

Post by lesuorac »

thibran wrote: post #47

A PR lie. Watch a Tesla FSD 12.3.4 video, then one of Mercedes and see for yourself.

Which video?

Tesla still has this one [1] up where the "not required driver" had to save the vehicle after it ran off the road into fences and etc numerous times [2] [3].

[1]: https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

[2]: https://www.classaction.org/media/matsko-v-tesla-inc-et-al.p...

[3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/06/technology/tesla-autopilo...

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

#57

Post by ra7 »

It operates under such specific conditions, it’s not very useful right now. Unless you spend a large part of your commute on clogged California highways, there’s not a big use case. But Mercedes would be hoping to expand that operational design domain (ODD).

Ultimately, I don’t think their L3 technology is the groundbreaking part (I think they use Nvidia Drive). It’s that they are willing to take liability inside their ODD. This will be a good experiment to see how liability shakes out for an automaker putting it in the hands of customers to be used conditionally vs someone like Waymo who doesn’t want anyone in the driver’s seat at all.

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

#58

Post by tempestn »

nsxwolf wrote: post #53

So I have to be ready to react to a mistake the car is making, not having any insight into the thought process of the car. I have to be a constantly vigilant backseat driver. Am I on the hook for accidents?

In theory the point of this system, unlike level 2 systems, is that you _don't_ need to do that. Of course, not having used it, I can't comment on how successful it is.

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

#59

Post by herewego »

qeternity wrote: post #41
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…

No, this is all wrong. Mercedes is offering L3. Tesla FSD is partial L2. The fact that Tesla doesn't self insure tells you everything you need to know. Writing that off as some footnote is missing the forest for the trees.

This is spot on. The liability difference between L2 and L3 is enormous and key to the progression that this announcement represents.

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

#60

Post by tempestn »

homefree wrote: post #21
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 cond…

It's not useless, but it's a very specific use case: commuting in rush hour traffic.
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