Meanwhile Mercedes has received approval for Level 3 with full legal responsibility in limited settings. Mercedes gives drivers at least ten seconds warning before giving back control in any situation.
It’s great to see some good competition in the market.
- The route has to have been pre-mapped by Mercedes
- Only works on highways
- Only in traffic jam-like conditions, i.e. traffic moving slower than 60 kmh (37 mph)
- No construction sites (even a single orange cone left over from prior road works will mean that you can't turn on the system / it will turn off)
Under these conditions, 10 seconds doesn't sound too difficult.
I still think that this is the "saner" approach than calling your product Autopilot and letting the general public beta test it (and driving in traffic jams is annoying so I wouldn't mind using the Merc system), but overall it feels mostly like a PR move to be able to say "we have a Level 3 product on the road". I read an article where Mercedes wanted to demonstrate the system to a journalist and they had to have a second car drive in front of them to artificially create a traffic jam because otherwise it wouldn't activate.