If you have a collision and your vehicle is judged at fault by whatever authority does it in your area the you are liable.
https://www.mbusa.com/en/owners/manuals/drive-pilot
Requirements:
- Stop and go traffic (or less than 40mph?)
- On some specific sections of highway
- Driver doesn’t need to monitor but must be ready to take over with 15(?) seconds of the system requesting
> Mercedes-Benz is assuming liability for any crashes or incidents that occur while the autonomous system is active
Not sure you understand how "The Formula" works. The profit generated by adding this feature will outweigh the cost of any resulting accidents that they take liability for.
A less pessimistic way of phrasing it is that within the boundaries they've defined, their self driving system is so much better than a human that they're willing to assume responsibility for crashes deemed "at-fault" while using the system.
Not intentionally trying to compare that with other automakers, but Mercedes is the only "you can buy now" vehicle (ignoring robotaxis/Waymo/others) that assumes liability with those capabilities. Until other automakers provide that legal guarantee, they're parlor tricks at best that will continue to get folks killed in scenarios that they otherwise wouldn't had they been actually paying attention.
Where I live if you are in the driver’s seat no matter if you were actually actively driving you are considered to be the driver. This has been well established here in drink-driving cases, but you’d have to ask a lawyer for your area.