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Comment by electrondood | Hacker News Reader

> Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph.

So this isn't any more of an advancement than Tesla's autopilot, which has been standard in every car for years.

Basically if Tesla decided to self-insure when autopilot is engaged, it would be the same.

Misleading headline. The cars aren't autonomous at all. They have self-insured cruise control under specific restricted conditions.

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The important distinction is that the Mercedes does not demand the driver be paying attention and ready to take over immediately if the car decides to pop out of self-driving mode. Tesla does not offer that.

Are you sure about that? If it starts raining or the sun goes down, the system isn't going to alert the driver to take over?

You are guaranteed 12 or so seconds to take over. That means the system can handle anything, from moving over from emergency vehicles to unexpected debris while you take over

> The cars aren't autonomous at all

Isn’t this just a swing of the pendulum to a similarly misleading extreme?

Somewhere between “this car is autonomous” and “not autonomous at all” lies the truth of the matter.

These cars have the capability of driving autonomously under specific conditions. If you drive a lot under those conditions, this functionality may be compelling.

Comparing this to cruise control (the automatic variety of which has been available for many years at this point) also seems quite misleading.

> Basically if Tesla decided to self-insure when autopilot is engaged, it would be the same.

So it's not the same as Tesla. Reading Reddit now that FSD has been available to not just those having bought into the hype has been interesting. It seems more stressful to use than just driving yourself.

Can confirm Tesla FSD is more stressful than driving yourself. I’ve been using it for a few weeks since they offered everyone free trial.

Seems to be improved from the previous version, but still requires a ton of interventions every single drive. It’s cool to experience for people who are tech savvy, but nowhere near the realm of being useful and replacing your driving needs.

Agreed. Every time I’ve used it or been in a Tesla as a passenger with FSD engaged, human intervention has been required several times each trip to avoid accidents, harm to pedestrians, or moving violations. It’s frankly embarrassing to use and terrifying to imagine the masses relying on it in any way in its current form.

Not in the situations that Mercedes is allowing L3: some roads in traffic. The Tesla does really well there.

Then Tesla should take liability in those conditions, if they are confident.

I think it would be too confusing to have a third state:

  - manual driving

  - supervised autopilot

  - unsupervised autopilot

Agreed. Remove the useless middle one. It only adds danger when people aren't paying attention.

No, this is all wrong. Mercedes is offering L3. Tesla FSD is partial L2.

The fact that Tesla doesn't self insure tells you everything you need to know.

Writing that off as some footnote is missing the forest for the trees.

This is spot on. The liability difference between L2 and L3 is enormous and key to the progression that this announcement represents.

Tesla FSD capabilities far exceeds all other car manufacture systems by a wide margin. Mercedes has Level 3, but that's only a legal thing, it says nothing about what the car can actually do.

Right now hundreds of thousands American Tesla owners are in their one month free trial FSD month and drive around with it on all kind of streets and weather conditions. There is no one else beside Tesla that is capable of doing this (no, not even Waymo).

> that's only a legal thing

It is not only. Tesla is unable to provide same guarantees or does not trust FSD.

Found the TSLA long. This is not the place to talk your book.

I have no idea what you're talking about with Waymo. The disengagement rates are orders of magnitude different. FSD is just simply not the magical secret sauce that you want it to be.

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