[ksubedi]

What most people here complaining about the "40 mph" limit do not realize is that below 40mph is where it's hardest to implement proper self driving, as majority of below 40mph driving will be in city streets with pedestrians, frequent turns and more variables. Anything higher will generally be in highways where lane assist cruise control systems are already more than good enough.

I will gladly take a system that can drive itself confidently under 40mph in city, and use basic lane assist (and maybe lane changes and exit ramps like in Teslas) for highways. Cant wait!

[rad_gruchalski]

> as majority of below 40mph driving will be in city streets with pedestrians, frequent turns and more variables

What this article fails to mention, but other articles on this system mentioned in the past, is that this system can be enabled only on designsted highway streteches. So no city driving.

Here: https://group.mercedes-benz.com/documents/innovation/other/2..., page 18, Operational Design Domain.

[fastball]

Yeah, this seems barely beyond Tesla's Autopilot and not even close to the FSD Beta.

[blhack]

Neither autopilot nor FSD would let me take my attention off of the road. It sounds like this thing is fine if you're distracted, as long as you can take control within 10 seconds.

[natch]

The ten second thing just means it will be disabling itself a lot. Unless it's just giving you false alarms constantly and then doing a little "my bad, nevermind" beep that tells you it has cancelled the heads up saying you have to take over 10 seconds from now. Which sounds not so great.

Ten seconds is an eternity, so if it sees the tiniest possibility ahead that things will get complicated, it will have to be conservative and give the ten second warning. And when it does get into heavy traffic, it will be disabled.

Because it will be disabling itself a lot (or super annoying if it's giving false alarms) it will either be not in use except on very sparse roadways, or it won't even matter because it will be completely turned off by the driver.

Bottom line, it's a marketing gimmick.

The alternative is a system that goes into the thick of traffic, still active, still helping, still adding an additional level of safety over and above what the driver maintains, but since the system is going into the thick of traffic in an enabled state, actively engaged, and things are dicey, the human still needs to be involved as an active participant in oversight. Ready to take over at a moment's notice. Not ten seconds from now. In this approach, the safety benefits are real, not just marketing. But the human needs to step up and stay responsible and own the shit that happens.

[foepys]

Autopilot is glorified cruise control and lane keeping. FSD is still occasionally trying to drive you into a concrete pillar and is not available unless you get selected to be a beta tester.

Unless Tesla assumes liability for their systems while you can legaly play on your phone, they are far behind.

[fastball]

Autopilot can change lanes. This cannot.

[hooloovoo_zoo]

I really don’t think they’re more than good enough on highways. Even teslas still veer over when they encounter on-ramp-merges.

[xixixao]

Hardly a problem in Europe where on ramps are much better (one lane is primary and one is joining).

[jhugo]

Europe is quite diverse in this respect. Italy for example has many highways that I would be terrified to let autopilot try to navigate merges on.

[shapefrog]

Italy for example has many highways that I am terrified to try to navigate merges on. Spain too!

[judge2020]

> under 40mph in city,

from the video:

> but once we hit some traffic we go under 40 miles an hour we'll be able to engage it but there are some other caveats: you have to be on a highway, the weather has to be nice, it can't be raining, it can't be freezing, and you can't change lanes; you have to stay in your lane while drive pilot is enabled

Hence the need for geofencing to the easiest situations where assuming liability means assuming nearly 0 liability. I really hope it progresses but we'll see in 3-5 years.

[acchow]

In terms of Mercedes assuming liability (which is what many commenters are focused on here), it seems below 40mph has the lowest liability risk.