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While the specs sound very underwhelming at first (geo-fenced on some roads, very low speeds, no bad weather), they seem to be so confident in their system, tha
by lorenzfx 4y ago
While the specs sound very underwhelming at first (geo-fenced on some roads, very low speeds, no bad weather), they seem to be so confident in their system, that they will take responsibility for the car when in autopilot. AFAIK, no other manufacturer does this for their systems (which capabilities they often make rather wild claims about).
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoI'm sorry Dave. There's a 60% chance of rain today. You're going to have to drive yourself.
- agumonkey 4y agoI'm more in favor of underwhelmed but responsible. Musk "approach" is despicable on this.
- 369548684892826 4y ago> they will take responsibility for the car when in autopilot This probably just means autopilot gets disengaged just before impact
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arlcode 4y agoThis also includes a 10 second takeover window (in accordance with EU regulations)
- ffhhj 4y agoCan a driver wake up, be calm, get spatial understanding, do bayesian physics predictions and decide the corrective maneuver in 10 seconds?
- criddell 4y agoThat's plenty of time. Find a clock and watch the second hand move for ten seconds. It's a long time.
- ghaff 4y agoEspecially if I am actually asleep, I can barely speak coherently on the telephone within 10 seconds much less take care of situation with a vehicle that a computer has thrown up its virtual hands about dealing with.
- FinnKuhn 4y agoLevel 3 autonomous driving isn't made with the use case of sleeping but with you being able to do other things while still awake (for example use your phone or watch a movie). For those situations 10s is more than enough time to react.
- ghaff 4y agoIf you're not paying attention, you can easily end up dozing off. You're either more or less paying attention--and yes drivers' attentions can drift a bit--or you're going to take some time to reacquire some awareness of what exactly is going on.
- zaroth 4y agoWe’ve gone from “unless you’re actively engaged you can’t possibly be ready to takeover immediately” to “unless you’re actively engaged you are easily going to be sleeping”. People fall asleep behind the wheel all the time. They just usually crash and maybe die when this happens, if FSD is not enabled at the time.
- Dylan16807 4y agoIf you can't stay awake then you need to not use this feature. If you're not exhausted it should be an easy task. If you are exhausted, arrange something else. Attention drifting is supposed to be fine. That's the entire point of level 3. How long do you think you need to regain focus? Maybe a different brand will cater to that amount of time, or you can lobby regulators.
- davidvarela_us 4y agofew things inspire confidence like companies putting their literal money where their mouth is
- slg 4y agoBut haven't we all seen Fight Club? It isn't a question a confidence, it is a question of financial math. This decision tells us nothing about the safety of the Mercedes system compared to its competitors. All it tells us is that adding these limitations to ensure the system is only used in the safest possible scenarios makes taking over liability more reasonable. That isn't surprising. Their competitors' systems are also very safe if used in this manner. The only difference is that the competitors are not satisfied with releasing a system with enough limitations that it only works in stop-and-go highway traffic in clear weather. It is that added functionality that is more dangerous and the reason other manufacturers don't take on liability. Odds are the marketing and accounting wings of Mercedes had just as much if not more influence on this decision than the tech team.
- I_DRINK_KOOLAID 4y ago> This decision tells us nothing about the safety of the Mercedes system compared to its competitors Mercedes is just taking notice that grandstanding and PR worked for Tesla, so they are doing the same thing. Everybody who is serious about this knows that unless you get Level 5 it's all just grandstanding. Level 5 won't come from unleashing Level 3 into the world and throwing deers , cyclists and pedestrians at it (hopefully not literally). It's just a weird hill that brainpower and capital decided to die on. Deaths on the road are tragic but airbags, seatbelts and ultimately bigger cars and lower alcohol intake are something that is practical, whereas FSD is something like a pie-in-the-sky thing
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoBigger cars? Have you seen the new pickups, what do you want to drive, a tank? Also bigger cars kill more pedestrians
- Traster 4y agoJust from a management perspective, even if you're super-confident in your engineers (which you shouldn't be), doing anything other than a very limited slow roll out would be negligent. This is a tectonic shift in liability. It's one thing if you sell 1,000,000 cars and 100,000 get in an accident. It's actually much worse to sell 10,000 cars and 1,000 of them get in an accident and the company is liable.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago'This is a tectonic shift in liability. ' Its the only form of liability i consider acceptable - I woupd never use autopilot where I would be to blame if i fail to react in 50 milliseconds once the car fucks up
- seanmcdirmid 4y agoI think for this reason full self driving is going to be more feasible in taxi-style vehicles first. You hail the driverless taxi, like with another person driving the taxi the passengers are not liable. It’s a model we are already used to, at least. If the taxi company winds up being the car producer, then the liability is the same as if they didn’t produce but operated the car.
- TylerH 4y agoThat's not really "full self driving" if you are referring to the SAE scale. Level 5, the top, is fully autonomous driving, everywhere. What you are referring to is level 4; fully autonomous driving in specific geofenced areas on predetermined routes. Think Delamain in Cyberpunk 2077.
- c54 4y agoFitting username :)
- cortesoft 4y agoYou are already going to be to blamed if you get in an accident for most hardware failures in a car. Why is this one so different?
- Hamuko 4y agoWhat about legal? As in, if I'm being driven around my Mercedes-Benz while watching a movie on my phone and something happens, am I not gonna get fucked by the cops?
- ghaff 4y agoAbsent legal/regulatory changes/waivers, the fact that MB is offering to cover financial liabilities would seem to be pretty much irrelevant to legal liabilities. So basically "we'll cover your costs" is pretty much irrelevant if you want to drive in a manner that would normally be considered reckless. But there's talk of certification so this may be taken into account. One would of course want to see specifics.
- nradov 4y agoThat would depend on the exact laws in particular jurisdictions where you might operate the vehicle. In some areas, law enforcement could cite you for using a phone even if the manufacturer had taken on the civil liability. Longer term some of those laws will probably change as Level 3 autonomous vehicles start to become more common.
- arlcode 4y agoGermany did already change the law (and is, I think, requiring exactly the kind of liability for the manufacturer that MB is offering)
- lima 4y agoIn Germany, the law was changed to account for this. There are limits - while you can watch a movie, you have to be ready to take over within ten seconds.
- Auracle 4y ago10 seconds is a ridiculously long time when driving. What was the logic for that timeframe? It seems to me you either need to be ready to take over in an instant or basically not at all.
- mhh__ 4y agoConfident but limited is probably how the German manufacturers describe most of their cars (although I think mercedes do at least some of their driverless in the USA)
- user3939382 4y ago> they seem to be so confident in their system Having spent a lifetime building networks and software that actually makes me nervous
- switchbak 4y agoThere's nothing about the way that I've seen automotive related software built that inspires me with confidence. Quite the opposite.
- user3939382 4y agoIf you've spent enough time building software you learn that the real world almost inevitably introduces edge cases that even the most careful testing couldn't foresee. Self driving to date has proven itself not to be an exception to this. I just can't imagine how Mercedes could be confident in a highly complex (self driving) system, designed to manage an insanely complex and unpredictable (driving) environment with no real-world tests. Maybe that's coming from the marketing/PR department and not engineering.
- steeve 4y agoRenault does, they announced it a while back. THIS is the real breakthrough (I worked on self driving cars in the mid 2000s).
- amelius 4y agoI wouldn't be surprised if the EU made this a law.
- stubish 4y agoI think other manufacturers will also be taking responsibility for liability when they come to market. It is just insurance. You can already pay an insurance company to accept liability. The difference with lv3 self drive and beyond is that insurance companies no longer have the data to correctly price their policies, because this is all new and they rely on historical data. The car manufacturers believe they have that data, and are now in a position to take that slice of the pie. I expect that once things settle down, the bulk of your insurance will be paid as a yearly fee to the manufacturer to cover self driving (and the manufacturer will likely offload much of the risk to Big Insurance).
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago> You can already pay an insurance company to accept liability If the car drives over a child in self-driving mode, will insurance company go to jail instead of you?
- yywwbbn 4y agoNobody goes to jail, same as now unless you can prove negligence or intent, there might be significant fines and/or settlement money depending on the jurisdiction. But I’m not sure how is this difference than deaths caused by some design flaw in normal cars.
- rodgerd 4y ago> AFAIK, no other manufacturer does this for their systems (which capabilities they often make rather wild claims about). What's interesting is the level of nit-picking scrutiny this is attracting compared to the uncritical defence of those wild claims that we're seeing here. A whole lot of copium.
- Dave_Rosenthal 4y agoYes. The liability factor is a great proof point, but the real tech innovation in my mind is not the self driving code, but instead the attack on the fundamental problem of building a model of where and when their stuff is trustworthy. As you point out, everyone else in the industry has simply punted that very difficult problem to the poor users to figure out!
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 4y agoNo other manufacturer explicitly says they do it, but guess who is legally responsible for manufacture defects whether or not they explicitly say they are? There's an extent to which what MB is doing here is turning a fact they have very little ability to evade into a marketing point.
- Tagbert 4y agoAt this stage of development, I think those limitations are entirely appropriate and I would want other manufacturers to be this cautious. Self driving is a convenience feature and limitations like this are reasonable. Once they have enough miles/years of experience, they can begin to remove some limitations.