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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

People have mentioned this in other sub-threads, but it's explicitly intended for stop-and-go traffic jams:

> Mercedez-Benz has announced approval of their “Drive Pilot” system, in Germany, which does fully autonomous operation in highway traffic jam situations.

> ...

> The Mercedes car provides the traffic jam assist function — only on German motorways to start — below 60 km/h. While people debate whether they want to drive their car or not, nobody likes driving in a traffic jam, and everybody hates the time wasted in them. As a luxury feature, this will let drivers make more productive use of that time.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2021/12/13/merced...

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But stop and go traffic jams in perfect conditions can already be handled properly by numerous companies' adaptive cruise control and lane keeping systems. I'm not sure why I should be impressed with Mercedes' tech here. The impressive aspect is that they are standing behind the tech by taking on liability, but that could easily just be considered a marketing expense rather than actual confidence in the technology. We have all heard the auto manufacturer anecdote from Fight Club. The math these companies do is based off money and not lives saved.

The difference is that they're explicitly allowing the driver to stop paying attention to driving, which reduces fatigue, wasted time etc. It's actual level 3 self-driving tech rather than mere driver assistance tech.

Of course, other driver assistance systems might be close to on par with it, but a system that successfully navigates stop and go traffic 99% of the time is very different from a system that successfully navigates stop and go traffic 100% of the time, in terms of driver attention required.

I'm not sure level 3 is any safer than level 2. Level 3 still requires a driver to intervene if the car requests it. But going from not paying attention to driving isn't something that can happen instantly. Imagine you are playing some game on your phone and alarms start going off in the car. You need to be able to process what those alarms are saying, assess the situation, and take control of the car. How quickly can people do that? Likely not fast enough to avoid any urgent issues. A driver in a level 2 system should already be paying attention so they should be able to respond quicker.

And yes, I understand that drivers can get lazy with a level 2 system. But if the selling point of Mercedes is taking over liability from the driver, I am mostly concerned how the system would benefit me as a driver and I regularly use my car's level 2 features while paying attention.

the difference is that level 2 requires you to take over at any time, immediately, while level 3 allows you to do something else and gives you some time (for drive pilot: 10 seconds) to take over. 10 seconds is quite some time in contrast to

I think for the proscribed use case the situation where you require human intervention is where the traffic jam clears up and it’s time to drive at highway speed again. Not an emergency. I’m having a hard time imagining a situation where you would need to speedily regain complete control to avert a crisis that a human wouldn’t already fail.

I find the distinction between level 2 and level 3 to be unhelpful. How long do humans have to take over? Anything less than 20 seconds is not very feasible IMO.

Taking liability is an interesting PR move, but I don't think it matters in stop and go traffic where speeds are relatively low and damage is typically minimal if any.

If 10 seconds isn’t enough to orient yourself and take over after the car alerts you to do so, you shouldn’t be driving a car.

With level 2 you must be CONSTANTLY paying attention. With level 3 you can NOT pay attention, and car will bing / bong you to pay attention. If you can't get your hands on the wheel in 20 seconds that's pathetic. I'd be able to get onto wheel in 5 seconds or so, but I'd like to be just chilling with my podcast until then (I'll still be looking at road, just not worrying about watching for stuff).

It's not about getting your hands on the wheel. It's about knowing whether to brake or speed up, and which direction to swerve. If the system is confused by the scenario and wants you to take over, it's presumably not as simple as maneuvering around a parked van on the shoulder - it's going to be in a complex scenario.

If you've been playing an immersive game on your Steam Deck (or a VR headset), yeah good luck good with knowing what to do when the car bing/bongs you.

If you think people shouldn't play games, what exactly does "you can NOT pay attention" mean? If the difference is solely liability - that's great but it doesn't make a difference to people in other vehicles (or to pedestrians).

Collisions at 40mph / 60km/h are no laughing matter. And as far as I understand, the Mercedes system will let you know well ahead of time if you have to take over, as that would only be required as you leave the designated area. Taking over to drive faster than the limit for drive pilot would never be a requirement.

Stop and go traffic jams aren't completely automated by most ADAS systems. For one, you're still completely liable for it failing. Secondly, most of those lane keep assists will still let your car wander out of the lane if you really don't pay attention, they mostly just tug at the wheel to help you notice drift or will beep at you. Finally, a lot of those will require manual intervention for it to start moving again after a full stop.

Mercedes implementation takes the legal liability. It will definitely stay in its own lane without any driver input. It will continue going again after a full stop all on its own.

Based on all the information I've seen, adaptive cruise control with lane keeping is all that Tesla is reliable at as well. The main difference between them and Mercedes is that Tesla is willing to put out tech that is known to be unreliable and let their customers take the fall for it.

>But stop and go traffic jams in perfect conditions can already be handled properly by numerous companies' adaptive cruise control and lane keeping systems.

And do those adaptive cruise control/lane keeping systems allow the driver to take their hands off the wheel and stop paying attention to the road?

Perhaps this is just a rebrand of that already common tech? Kind of how some manufacturers claim "we have AI!" just based on something simple like adapting to a moving average.

I haven't driven every car but none of the cars I've driven could actually handle stop and go traffic. They will certainly stop but leave it to you to press the accelerator to go again. Now on a highway with medium to light traffic they are plenty capable of managing it.

It's not a jump in technology. It's the result of a slow growth of that technology to "mature enough to take liability for". Which is a better way to move tons of machine around under computer control.

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