The CEO of Mercedes-Benz’s North American R&D operation would like to remind you that today, right now, one of his company’s dealers will sell you the only car with a certified automated driving assistance system that will let you fully take your hands off the steering wheel and your eyes off the road.
You just have to live in California or Nevada and be driving during the daytime and with clear weather, on approved highways with clear lane markings, in “moderate to heavy traffic” and at 40 mph or below. You also have to be able to afford an S-Class or EQS Sedan, but that kind of goes without saying. That’s quite a few caveats.
Nonetheless, there are reasons for those limitations, both internally at Mercedes and externally, R&D CEO Philipp Skogstad told me earlier this month at the MOVE America mobility conference in Austin.
“With Level 3 [automated driving], we are, today, still the only ones who have [a Society of Automotive Engineers] certified system out on the road,” Skogstad said. “And from what we have so far, understood from the authorities, there is nobody else in even applying for that permit. So right now we think we are the leader.
Skogstad added, “There may be others who are getting headlines or suggesting that they are further along, but so far, we’re the only ones with Level 3 certification.”
Philipp Skogstad, Mercedes-Benz
Like any good car company executive, Skogstad didn’t mention any competitors by name. But it’s clear to anyone with ears or eyes lately that Tesla is trying to position itself as the leader in AI-powered automated driving, something that CEO Elon Musk has been promising and thus far failing to deliver for a decade.
While Tesla has a way of dominating conversations in the automotive tech space, players like Google’s Waymo, trucking company Aurora and a number of China-based firms have all made significant strides in testing and even transporting people with fully driverless cars.
These turquoise lights indicate that Drive Pilot is engaged.
Mercedes’ Drive Pilot system is not, of course, fully driverless. But right now, it is the only system in America that will automate the driving experience under those specific conditions above and not require the driver to look at the road or put their hands on the wheel. When it is engaged, a set of unique turquoise lights activate to tell other drivers that it’s operating in that mode.
The vast majority of ADAS functions in cars require a driver’s hands to be on the wheel; a growing field of others, including General Motors’ Super Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise, allow a driver to go hands-off provided that a sensor detects their eyes and attention are on the road.
Those so-called Level 2 systems, while growing in number and popularity, are a source of controversy on their own. Many critics say they lull humans into a false sense of security that leaves the driver too distracted and unprepared to intervene and potentially avert an accident at a moment’s notice. Moreover, it’s worth noting that some of them just aren’t very good, often struggling with basic functions like staying in a lane.
A Mercedes EQS with Drive Pilot requests that the driver takes over control.
And then there are the general risks of automating driving. Even as it prepares to launch a so-called “Cybercab” and potential robotaxi service that may be akin to Waymo, Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology has drawn almost no end of controversy. FSD can be engaged for driving in city streets, and while proponents say it has improved markedly with recent updates, other critics say its reliance on camera vision alone leaves it prone to making too many mistakes. Competitors integrate LIDAR, radar and other sensors to improve spatial awareness and provide redundancy.
Others say that Tesla’s faith in artificial intelligence to train and control FSD may be misplaced given what a nascent field AI is—and how we’re still struggling to understand what decisions an AI may choose to make and why. And FSD is still technically a “beta” system. While it is not finalized yet, it has been foisted upon ordinary Tesla owners, other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and anything else that may be in its path. Road users do not have to opt in to the beta to be affected by it.
Skogstad said that approach wasn’t in the cards for Mercedes. In fact, he said, “dangerous” is the opposite of what Mercedes is trying to do. “We are putting a lot of technology into the vehicle to make it safer,” he said. “And the Drive Pilot system is another step to making it safer.”
That’s inherent in the technology at work on cars equipped with Drive Pilot. The Mercedes sedans use radar, LIDAR, cameras, a sensor suite and an antenna array to automate driving. They have moisture sensors to detect whether rain will interfere with the systems, a rear-facing camera that picks up on emergency lights, and systems to detect whether you’re sleeping or unable to take over at some point.
This is also why it isn’t cheap. Drive Pilot is a subscription service that costs $2,500 per year. But Skogstad told me it’s necessary for Mercedes’ approach: It’s not just about capitalizing on this technology but delivering something that will one day be fully safer than a human driver.
“There is a higher threshold for automated driving than for human driving in terms of safety,” he said. “You and I can make mistakes [behind the wheel.] But Mercedes software cannot make a mistake.” And that includes training AI to not repeat the same mistakes humans might make too, he said. “We use AI to analyze certain situations and then train [the system] how we would handle such situations, rather than that specific situation… we’re not interfering in real time [with how] the vehicle behaves,” he said.
That also includes not pushing out over-the-air software updates that could make a vehicle act differently than it did the previous day, he said—something that has been an issue with Tesla’s cars. (Skogstad declined to comment on Tesla specifically.)
Besides, while the U.S. legal system hasn’t been fully tested for all ADAS outcomes yet, it’s generally accepted that a human driver is responsible for minding a Level 2 system. For a Level 3 system, the manufacturer is, Skogstad said. And clearly, Mercedes-Benz isn’t as apt as some to take such risks with its consumers or its own corporate liability.
In that way, it’s an almost night-and-day approach to what Tesla is doing. One automaker is keeping its system as gradual and perhaps limited as possible, while another is evolving what it can do as a public beta test.
But in theory, being this cautious could put a “leader” like Mercedes behind the curve if another player were to evolve more quickly. Skogstad said he’s less worried about that because the end goal isn’t some kind of robotaxi service run by Mercedes, but simply giving customers a more luxurious experience behind the wheel. That means giving them “their time back” on long highway drives.
In the meantime, however, one thing that holds that up is the same challenge nearly every player in the autonomy space has gripes about: America’s patchwork, state-by-state approach to regulating this technology. Working closely with state regulators and public safety officials to get permits for Drive Pilot has its perks, he said, but it does limit Mercedes’ development capacity.
“What I would love is if I could have that one regulation certification in all states,” Skogstad said. “We believe in [this technology’s] benefit for our customers, and we want them to be able to enjoy that technology regardless of where they are and regardless of where they’re going. If they’re doing a road trip from LA to Houston, why have it only work in California?”
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
