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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.

#81

Post by bhauer »

ra7 wrote: post #76
bhauer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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, includ…

> The difference between SAE Level 3 versus Level 2 is liability, not functionality. Conceptually, it would be relatively simple to create a Level 3 system that only worked in parking lots and never drove over 5 MPH. And yes, such a system would be "Level 3," which naively sounds better than "Level 2" because the number is higher. No one’s going to take liability if their technology is not ready for the conditions th…

The limitations of the Mercedes system are only a little higher than the hypothetical parking lot Level 3 system. The point is to emphasize that a narrow Level 3 system is not very interesting compared to a broad Level 2 system. Technical capability > appeasing lawyers.

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

#82

Post by ra7 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #65
ra7 wrote: post #57

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 the…

I work on AVs and this is a) incredibly useful b) the future of self-driving L3 is 100% the groundbreaking part because it's when the manufacturer has to take liability and it's where people can actually afford it. I believe in the technology "trickling up" for L3 much more than I believe tech in our million dollar robotaxis trickling down to consumer vehicles.

I think it’s a good first step, but it’s still limited in usability in its current iteration.

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

#83

Post by jen20 »

jeffbee wrote: post #74
ra7 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to what others have said about pricing, you need to compare Waymo with Uber Black, not UberX or shared rides. Waymo says they are aiming to be a premium service because the cars (Jaguar I-pace) are much nicer and, of course, there’s the novelty of not having a driver.

Uber has sent me cars that did not have tires, wipers, or headlights. The fact that Waymo sends you a roadworthy car is, by itself, worth $5 per trip.

Is it? Or should a roadworthy car be considered table stakes for actually being on the road, and one which is not is instead worth a police report?

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

#84

Post by llamaimperative »

bhauer wrote: post #64
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…

> "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, includ…

> The difference between SAE Level 3 versus Level 2 is liability, not functionality.

No it's not. The difference is functionality, proof that the vendor believes they've achieved that difference is most clearly communicated via liability.

> The scope of the Mercedes system is simply too narrow

Producing systems that perform reliably under the prescribed conditions is called "good engineering."

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

#85

Post by SoftTalker »

ra7 wrote: post #39
harles wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Waymo is the only one actually scaling driverless taxis. They’ve gone from providing public rides in 1 city (Phoenix) to 3 cities (+SF, LA) with a 4th one (+Austin) coming soon. They’ve given more than a million rides, with the majority of them coming in the last year. No one else is doing this. If other companies thought they’d hitch on to Waymo after they started giving rides in 2017, then that’s on them. Because W…

"Taxi service in a congested urban area" is probably the market where it makes the most sense. Trips are pretty short, cars stay in the a local area where they have hyper-accurate mapping data, and are likely to quickly find another passenger or can return to a nearby parking/waiting area.

Waymo won't keep a monopoly on this forever. There are still high barriers to entry, but they will fall sooner or later. If there is money to be made, competition will come.

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

#86

Post by llamaimperative »

bhauer wrote: post #81
ra7 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between SAE Level 3 versus Level 2 is liability, not functionality. Conceptually, it would be relatively simple to create a Level 3 system that only worked in parking lots and never drove over 5 MPH. And yes, such a system would be "Level 3," which naively sounds better than "Level 2" because the number is higher. No one’s going to take liability if their technology is not ready for the conditions th…

The limitations of the Mercedes system are only a little higher than the hypothetical parking lot Level 3 system. The point is to emphasize that a narrow Level 3 system is not very interesting compared to a broad Level 2 system. Technical capability > appeasing lawyers.

Uhh but a narrow Level 3 system will also in general do broad Level 2. You think these Mercedes can't do adaptive cruise control at 60mph wherever you want to activate it?

I would take a car with reliable, narrow L3 and reliable broad L2 (especially when the L3 is reliable in the most frustrating driving conditions to encounter) over broad pseudo-L3 any day.

Waymos are incredible, but Teslas are a much worse tradeoff than what MB is proposing here in my opinion.

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

#88

Post by SoftTalker »

qznc wrote: post #46
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…

Waymo does not sell cars. They are in a different business. I don’t really know the numbers but Waymo adds something like 50k worth of hardware into the cars. That is not a viable approach for consumer cars (Mercedes, Tesla, etc).

That hardware cost will drop eventually as it becomes commoditized and competing providers emerge. We're still pretty early in the game.

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

#89

Post by Retric »

bhauer wrote: post #64
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…

> "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, includ…

Level 3 actually lets you take a break while driving. L2 systems don’t and therefore IMO don't provide significant benefits.

More range and more driving conditions just don’t matter here if I can’t read a book on the way to work then it’s not self driving just advanced cruse control.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

ricardobeat wrote: post #42
mongol wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The vast majority of traffic accidents does not result in jailtime for anyone involved. Since algorithms cannot have malice, the only offense left is negligence which for companies usually means a heavy fine and/or legal restraints, maybe prosecution.

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