Beyond the up-to 37mph "self-driving" I'm very sure the car also supports all the already available driver-assistance features (adaptive cruise control, lane assist, etc.) up to much higher speeds. Compared to the self-driving feature the lane-assist will bug you once you take your hands of the wheel for more than 10-30 seconds, and they require the driver to be able to always immediately take over control, because the manufacturer doesn't deem them as safe for real self-driving without human intervention. This is more comparable to what Tesla currently offers from my understanding, even though Tesla markets this more aggressively ("Autopilot").
This article is about a traffic jam assist that is robust enough that the driver doesn't need to pay attention at all. The Tesla S can't do this. Audi have lane keep and ACC as well, just like Tesla, but that's not what we are discussing here.
Below 37MPH, I actually trust Tesla's AP (v1) a ton. At slow speeds, it doesn't nag you about putting your hands on the wheel very often either. I still pay attention (no phone reading, etc), but I've never had to take over control at low speeds.
Yes, if we ignore the fatal accidents.
The fatal accidents where the driver didn't respond to the warnings his car gave him?
No, he's probably talking about the fatal accident where the car didn't give any warnings at all. When Joshua Brown died his car was in autopilot and it didn't brake and it didn't give any warnings at all before it hit the semi in front of it.
There should be no role for a "driver" if the car is considered in self-driving mode.
The "driver" would then be just a person sitting in the driver seat that could be snoring or playing games on their mobile phone, and generally be distracted out of their mind...
as well behind Mercedes-Benz even on way cheaper cars, it works on same conditions and up to 130km/h.