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Will Mercedes jump to level 3 before Tesla? Looks like it.
- Thread starter vapor trail
- Start date
I don’t think Autopilot could be L3 in it’s current form. For one, Autopilot ignores road debris. It would either have to see it and notify user to take over or swerve around it.
sleepydoc
Well-Known Member
Agreed.
Hardly FUD - I just dispute the argument that this is some huge technological feat. (also, if you read my posts you'll see that I'm no Tesla fanboy)
Ah, but (to my understanding) the laws don't allow that in the U.S.
...and once again, this is a legal and bureaucratic achievement, not a technical one.
A coworker's friend had to commute from Minneapolis to Rochester on a weekly basis (about 90 miles/140 km). He would hang a weight on his steering wheel and not touch it until he arrived. I absolutely do not condone circumventing safety mechanisms, but he did this for over a year without issue. This was 3-4 years ago.
The technical issues have been solved for highway driving but I think @Bouba is absolutely correct.- in the land of multimillion dollar lawsuits the real hurdle is going to be legal liability. No matter what the laws say, there will be legal challenges when a crash happens. In many ways, I suspect most companies are secretly hoping another company goes first so they can be the one to deal with it.
Elon Musk make a comment once that a human driver can have an accident every X miles and it's accepted but if an automated system has an accident every 10x miles people start screaming about how a human wold have prevented it. He's right - humans aren't rational in this regard. (and let's face it - Americans are even less rational) We're willing to accept imperfection from ourselves but not imperfection from an automated system (or other humans.)
And where is it noted that this Mercedes version dodges road debris and road kill? Betting they are the same at 35MPH
bradtem
Robocar consultant
The Mercedes system (like most traditional OEM systems) does not let you activate it if it doesn't think you are in its ODD. If it did so, that would be a defect and make squirming harder.
People have a common misconception about Autopilot and even FSD, that they are near ready to work. They are not even remotely close to it. People get really excited when they drive for hours without an intervention. The standard for a robocar (even the wimpy level 3) is to drive for a whole human lifetime of driving without a crash-level mistake if you don't intervene. I get one of those every couple of miles with FSD. I still get them regularly with Nav-on-Autopilot and less so with Autopilot but they still happen. The standard should be, "I've been driving for 50 years and I haven't had one." In other words, no human's personal experience says anything to say it works. (Though it can say that it doesn't.) Only the combined experience of many thousands of people could start to tell you that, and only Tesla knows that result. And they have not yet released a traffic jam pilot. Tesla is not conservative about what it is willing to release.
PungoteagDave
Member
our cameras cannot "see" well enough to deal with light rain or any obscurity that a human eye can deal with. That's a deal breaker for Level 3, full stop, much less robotaxi. Our basic hardware cannot go where Elon says it will. And he is now almost saying that, but couched in software programming terms, because anything else would be to admit failure of premise.
Part of the regulatory elements that allow automated systems on the road also need to act to limit the liability faced by those automated systems. I'm not expecting that an automated system gets a free pass when its deemed at fault for an accident, but that I don't want that liability to stifle the rollout of autonomous system.
I also expect autonomous systems to face unique challenges like human drivers ignoring right of way laws because they know the robot vehicle will stop for them, and there won't be any consequence.
The regulations allow a manufacture or fleet owner to say they did due diligence when it came to safety, and they didn't take any short cuts to get to market. It also gives the community as a whole the feeling like the regulatory requirements give them control. When accidents happen the regulatory requirements can be adjusted.
A lot of non-Tesla owners hate the FSD beta program because they feel its a danger to road users, and there wasn't any requirement Tesla needed to achieve to put them on the streets.
So it wouldn't surprise me in the least if the first fatality or serious injury accident involving FSD Beta wasn't a substantial payout.
If Tesla would be capable of L3, then they would do it.
(Tesla would love to be the first. The only reason they are not is that they do not have the tech to do it.)
OncomingStorm
Member
i'm not sure how that applies to my point exactly, but even them, when they inevitably kill someone, i'd bet anything, the company wont take any major hit beyond PR and maybe a fine at worst.
It’s an L3 system. It doesn’t need to dodge the debris. It needs to notify you within a certain period to pay attention and take control. And if it doesn’t and you hit said debris, the liability for damage lies on Mercedes.
If not the company, who do you think would be held responsible then? (there is no-one in the drivers seat, remember)
You have 10 seconds to take over. If you do not, car will stop safely.
Lets say that "stopping safely" from 60km/h would take 10sec, then the the total distance from which the car should see the debris would be at least 250m. This would exclude any small debris due to them not being visible from 250m away.
In any event, L3 should not hit debris. Either you take over or car stops safely.
Interesting case would be driving behind a truck 60km/h and some debris would fall from the truck. This gives significantly less time for car to react than what is their window for handover.
By limiting the speed to 60km/h, the car could just hit the breaks and avoid (forward) collision if there is standard at least 7 car length distance to the truck. Probability of getting rear-ended would be high, but the car would not be the at fault party.
I hope MB can do better than just counting on hitting the breaks: changing lane could in many cases be safer.
By limiting the speed to 60km/h, the car could just hit the breaks and avoid (forward) collision if there is standard at least 7 car length distance to the truck. Probability of getting rear-ended would be high, but the car would not be the at fault party.
I hope MB can do better than just counting on hitting the breaks: changing lane could in many cases be safer.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Maybe it depends on the state. In this video, they demo Mercedes' L3 in LA. And the presenter says that Mercedes is working to deploy the L3 system in CA and NV by end of this year.
According to the video, the 10 seconds take over
- 5 seconds just waiting for you to react
- After 5 Starting to slow down
- After 10 seconds, turning on emergency blinkers
- After 10 seconds, making a 911 call (assuming the driver is incapasitated)
Overall, sounds very annoying...
Knightshade
Well-Known Member
Your understanding is not correct.
Anybody who has what they believe is a working/safe L3, L4, or L5 system can deploy it today in consumer cars in half a dozen US states- in most cases without needing any additional approvals or regulations (and in the few they need any it's literally filing a note with the DMV or DOT saying "We are doing this and self-certify it's safe"
The reason there's no such system in public hands today is nobody has one they think can do it.
Simply not true- that they believe it's good enough to take responsibility for the DDT is a technical one. You can debate how important of one, but waiting to see how it does first probably would make sense.
No, it has not.
Teslas still can (and do) hit stationary vehicles and objects only partly in the lane/on the shoulder with their L2 system when the driver is not paying attention.
See also the road debris issue the system does not address at all today.
I do believe they can GET to an L3 or L4 highway-specific system- but they absolutely aren't there today.
sleepydoc
Well-Known Member
It seems Tesla is focused on the bigger goal of L3 in all areas, not just traffic jams on freeways. Traffic jams on freeways is pretty low hanging fruit at this point. Still, Elon is pretty competitive so I'm sure it would bug him considerably if another company got L3 approval before Tesla did.
Another consideration for Tesla - they've grown considerably in the last 2-3 years but prior to that they were still rather small. The lawsuit consideration is not a small one and had they proceeded to L3 and been found liable for an accident it could have had the potential to cause significant damage to the company. I don't know if this is their overt plan or not, but in many ways it makes sense to let Mercedes go first. Let another company deal with the bureaucratic and legal issues. Like I said, Elon is rather competitive and focused on pushing the envelope, so I don't know whether this is their actual plan, but it would be a rational one. (yeah...that kind of rules it out for Elon!)
Regarding debris on the road, Tesla generally doesn't try to avoid smaller items like boxes, boards, etc. I didn't see anything in the Mercedes presentation about that, either. All they said was 'avoiding obstacles while staying in the lane.' and gave a picture of swerving slightly to avoid another car that was slightly in the lane. That's pretty minimal and staying in the lane significantly limits how much you can do. Think about what you do when you see something - you see it, figure out what it is, figure out how high it is and if it will damage your car, decide whether you can hit it, straddle it or need to drive around it, consider the traffic around you, then brake and/or swerve to avoid it. I don't know of any vehicle that can do that right now.
This is worth repeating over and over again. Some people seem to believe anyone can just game the system and release whatever they want. From L3 is where the liability starts to shift to the manufacturer and the liability is so high that nobody will attempt that unless they are sure.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
There are other ways to limit liability/risk too. For example Honda (which was the actual first to it) has their system limited to 100 lease only top end Legend models in Japan.
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