Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

insideevs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 283 posts

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

#71

Post by TekMol »

fragmede wrote: post #68
TekMol wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Tesla not have something to back up their claim that self driving is coming? This was certainly not possbile 10 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X9XyHHTTQI How long back in time can we go and still find a Youtube video of a car driving itself as well as this one?

How about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHbMt6WDhQ8 from Waymo, 6 years ago.

That is a hand-selected collection of seconds long snippets. By the manufacturer. That does not give me any sense of how well this car can drive itself.

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

#73

Post by foepys »

glitchc wrote: post #10
mmsimanga wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am paraphrasing a quote I have heard before, "Pioneers get the bullets and settlers get the land." Might not be actual bullets but pioneers today have to deal with legislators, put up charging stations, develop most components from scratch and so on. These are the modern day bullets. If they don't get bought by a larger company the larger company launches a competing product with the benefit of the experiences of t…

Can't argue that Tesla's smaller than Mercedes when Tesla's market cap is so much larger. In 2021, at it's peak Tesla's market cap crossed $1.2 Trillion. Daimler at it's peak this year only reached $81 Billion (although climbing). Why couldn't Tesla just buy out Daimler? Even now Tesla sitting at a valuation of $372 Billion. It could happen tomorrow. Tell me Elon's the savvy businessman you claim him to be. If Gates…

Does nobody remember that Daimler was an early investor in Tesla? They sold their 10% share a few years ago.

https://ir.tesla.com/press-release/strategic-partnership-dai...

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

#74

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by Animats »

metaphor wrote: post #42
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is correct. The SAE explains this in more detail and makes the distinction between being constantly ready to immediately take over and being asked to resume driving. https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

Is this supposed distinction actually meaningful? I don't know...color me unconvinced. When I interpret "being constantly ready to immediately take over" language, it's unambiguous that I need to maintain full situational awareness as if I were driving the vehicle. Physically and mentally transitioning from partial to full situational awareness obviously takes some time, and yet from the graphic in the SAE link, the…

There are studies on this, but most of them are paywalled.[1] The key value issue is "takeover time", where a level 3 system asks the driver to take over. Values studied are in the 5 to 7 second range.

This is marginal. Volvo was trying for a level 3 system where, if the driver did nothing, the vehicle ended up safely stopped, preferably out of traffic. That's the gold standard for level 3.

"Under German law, to be allowed to operate at Level 3 above 37 mph, vehicles will have to be able to autonomously reach a 'safe haven' such as a breakdown lane in case of an emergency."[2] Mercedes is not there yet. They claim 10-second handoff, but they really want the human back on line in 3 seconds.[3] Look away from the road for 5 seconds, and the system starts complaining.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00014...

[2] https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/mercedes-benz-drive-pilot...

[3] https://mercedes-world.com/news/mercedes-benz-level-3-drive-...

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

#78

Post by sschueller »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61
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

> how does this compare with Tesla? Mercedes appears to be indemnifying drivers when its tech is engaged. That's frankly the bigger first for me than SAE Level 3.

Might also be a problem because I am sure this is a calculated risk. We can pay X amount of law suites until our profit is impacted.

Didn't Ford do a similar thing with their explorer? They knew about a roll over issue but decided that it was finacilly cheaper to pay the lawsuits than recall the vehicle.

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

#79

Post by berkes »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60
foepys wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany (where this system is already available) Mercedes takes liability and the system gives the driver a 10 second advanced warning before they have to take over. It's also only available on certain stretches of the Autobahn. If the system allows you to enable it, you can use it. The German law allows autonomous driving up to 130 km/h although Mercedes currently only allows their system to work up to 60 km/h.

> Mercedes takes liability This has to be the standard for all but the most egregious examples of other-driver-at-fault crashes. That, together with marketing standards, e.g. you can say FSD but you have to also disclose Level 2, should help clean things up while incentivizing good development.

Certainly.

But companies will offer this only if the downside risk is bearable. Which, (IANAL) is quite certainly much bigger in the US than in Germany.

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

#80

Post by oarsinsync »

xracy wrote: post #45
Mrtierne wrote: post #21

What’s the technological leap equivalent when I finally turn in my 2011 Fusion and get a car with this type of tech?

You don't have to press the breaks or gas when you are following someone without changing lanes.

My 2016 adaptive cruise control already does this. There must be more to it than this. ACC will follow the car in front of me to a complete stop if necessary already. And then resume too.
Post reply on HN