Earlier this year when Mercedes announced its Level 3 "Drive Pilot" system [0], a lot of Tesla stans mocked its limitations, which to be honest, are quite numerous on the face of it:
- Only allowed on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems
- Limited to a top speed of less than 40 mph
- Operates only during the daytime and in clear weather
But the big promise from Mercedes is that it would take legal liability for any accidents that occurs during Drive Pilot's operation, something that Tesla doesn't appear to be even thinking about wrt Autopilot and FSD.
I would love someone to goad/challenge Tesla to step up to Mercedes. If FSD is so much better than Drive Pilot, then why doesn't Tesla agree to provide a "safe mode" for FSD, that operates with the exact same restrictions as Mercedes' D-P, and offers the same legal protections to any users who happen to get into accidents during "safe mode" FSD operation?
Mercedes has these limitations not because their tech is less capable than Tesla's but because Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain.
Tesla, in contrast, is a software company that is trying to take "move fast and break things" into the two-ton 75mph vehicle space, with predictable results.
> Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain.
Not only that, but they have a quality reputation to uphold with their domestic (German) and regional (European) market.
Your average discerning German car buyer (i.e. the sort who has a Porsche 911, or a higher-end Audi/BMW/Merc) in their garage will swiftly tell you about numerous problems with the Tesla before they've even sat in it.
Panel gaps, for example. They mean a lot to your average discerning German, and your average Tesla has them by the bucket load.
In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-)
> In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-)
As a German I can certainly say that folks here really pay attention to where cars are manufactured. Tesla Model Y's available on various platforms are boldly advertised as "Manufactured in Grünheide". At the same time people are aware that some domestic models (such as the Mercedes EQS SUV) are solely manufactured in the US and then shipped over, which are sometimes conceived as lower quality as a result.
I currently have a Tesla Model Y and a Porsche Macan. The Macan feels more luxurious, but the Model Y is easier to drive because of its unearthly acceleration.
The biggest thing that Tesla got right besides the acceleration is the value-add features like Sentry mode, the tight integration with the phone, the things like Walk-away locking (although I would very much prefer it lock closer to my car because it's about 40-60 ft away when it locks and it makes me nervous).
The build quality is cheaper, the sound system sucks, and I generally despise how many things are tied to the screen. I want buttons and knobs for the air system, to have to hunt for that on the screen is very dangerous, I hate it.
The Porsche feels more luxurious but it's mindblowing how they get so many things wrong. The dashboard is much too complicated with a lot of redundant buttons. Something as simple as there's no place to put my phone, there's only extremely awkward locations that cause my phone to fly around the car when I go around any turn, which is so dumb in 2022. The backup camera has way too narrow field of view, I've almost backed into 2 cars in parking lots, something the Tesla got right. At least they have Apple Carplay, but activating it is extremely annoying.
I also have BMWs before (X3 and X6) and overall my favorite car of all time is the X6.
The Macan is a sports car first, luxury car second. A better comparison would be against against a Mercedes GLC and that absolutely stomps a Tesla Y. Anyone driving with passengers in the car probably doesn’t care about “unearthly acceleration” as much as a quiet, smooth ride, and abundant cameras and safety features. The Tesla Y is on par with a Honda Civic from a decade ago in ride quality.
Honestly I do not get how they go away with so much touchscreen - that should be illegal honestly. You very quickly learn the buttons and knobs in your car for basic activities and do not even need to look. Not to mention a single point of failure with that touchscreen!
This reminds me of Blackberry saying “enterprise users need a real keyboard” when the iPhone was launched.
Which isn’t to say you’re wrong, a driving experience isn’t the same, but I’m sure that experience was the guiding principle behind Tesla going full touchscreen.
That being said apple put a lot of work on the keyboard experience with haptics and fuzzy hit design to make it as functional as it is. I’m not sure Tesla has done the same level of usability work.
They get away by cutting corners. The Tesla screen is not built to common automotive screen standards and often fails in inclement conditions or prematurely as a result.
I have no idea why car manufacturers don't have phone holders built in. We're forced to buy cheap crap off the jungle website to suction cup, clamp, or screw into the dash. IMHO it should be a standard like the cigarette outlet.
I think it's actually quite worse in terms of security, as you can use some kind of range extender to pretend that the key is close and open (or even start?) the car.
Fuck panel gaps. Just look at the quality of the interior. You’re paying 100k for a car that has worse quality than a Ford. Everything is plastic, there are no button knobs anywhere, no panel in front of the driver, the leather on the seats doesn’t feel like leather etc. I mean I get it that half the price of the car is in batteries and R&D, but still you can’t even compare it to a 50k Volvo. It’s just crap. And now that the big manufacturers are moving into electric cars Tesla’s got a lot of serious completion to face from companies who know how to treat a customer who's paying big bucks.
Yeah... it's funny, but I wanted a Tesla real bad before I actually sat in a friend's. The UX sucks. Everything from opening the door to trying to access the AC or glove compartment was a pain in the ass.
Nevermind FSD accidents, I think I'd get myself killed just trying to turn down the heat on that giant touchscreen.
I just replaced my Audi Q5 with a Tesla Model Y (which... wasn't $100k). No panel gaps, no other problems, and the overall quality feels nicer than the Audi. Shrug!
Anyway, yeah, the next few years look really exciting for consumer EVs. So many announcements in 2022.
The Audi Q5 had issues with the infotainment IMO. It wasn't stock android auto like in my Hyundai. The voice assistant button always routed to the audi voice thing (completely worthless I know what I want google to do, now connect me to google). The buttons felt over complicated.
Although one feature I really liked was that it would tell me what the biggest consumers of power was. I would definitely like to have a car with a heated steering wheel in the winter here, but that isn't in the cards.
Mine was a 2018 Q5. Had a central knob, which I thought was nice for navigating around the screen. But yeah, overall the software and system was pretty lousy. In fact, I was _never_ able to get it to connect to my carplay (or whatever I was supposed to do) to show a map. My wife had that working with her phone. But I couldn't do it! I also couldn't charge my phone and stream music at the same time. And obviously, the software - which already seemed behind the times in 2018 - was never updated in four years. I got in the habit memorizing entire routes from my phone before I drove. It's interesting now to have a car where the map is front and center.
First thing I did with this Tesla is turn off the heated steering wheel for my driver profile. My hands sweat easily, so it was undesirable.
> In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-)
Speaking more seriously on that front, there's been the acquihire of Grohmann Engineering.
> In fact, the German in-joke is that the reason Tesla built a factory in Germany is so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps. :-)
Having owned model Ys made in both China and Germany, I can tell you that the germans have not succeeded. The made in China Y was 100% no issues, while the German one looks like it has been in a collision already. Anecdotal, but this seems to be the pattern with cars delivered to Europe.
>so that the Germans could (try to) teach them how to fix the panel gaps
Not a Tesla owner or fan but I have a question that's really bugging me now: Which customers really care about panel gaps?
Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"?
When has the panel gap became "the benchmark" indicative of car quality beyond the body shell?
Like, if the panel gaps are the only thing you can find wrong in a car, then it must be a really really good car, right?
Is there any proven evidence that the panel gaps corelate to quality and reliability of the rest of the car, or is it just a myth of the car enthusiasts community that got spread around and went too far? I get it, some Tesla are unreliable and built poorly, but it's not because they have big panel gaps. The reverse is also true for many cars, so this isn't a rule.
Sure, if you want to measure and compare panel gaps, then by all means go ahead and measure panel gaps, but please don't pretend they mean anything more than that, and that it's somehow an indicative for the car's overall quality and reliability, because so far there hasn't been any proof of this correlation.
Aren't those cars (McLaren/Ferrari) also horribly uncomfortable and lacking in a lot of other amenities (like sound systems or tech)? It feels like those cars are a completely different category of good, and trying to measure them on the same scale is misguided.
To me, panel gaps are a proxy for how much faith you have in your consistency and quality control.
>To me, panel gaps are a proxy for how much faith you have in your consistency and quality control.
I beg to differ. Modern German cars might have panel gaps tighter than a nun's fanny, but their reliability, especially after warranty is over, is so awful than in no way can I say that they represent quality. Those quality cars went away in the late '80s early '90s when the engineers got replaced by the bean counters and cars became white goods with many critical parts outsourced to the lowest bidding contractor, that must look 'cool' in the showroom, but fail the second the warranty runs out, or many times even before that.
To me, the panel gaps are a superficial metric of quality and prove nothing of substance that goes beyond body shell.
Why don't we measure quality by how reliable a car is over time and how long it lasts? Surely that would prove good consistency and quality control on the manufacturer's side, no?
Tight panel gaps only shows how much efort the manufacturer has put in the body, but says nothing about the quality and reliability of the electronics and mechanics, which is what really matters in a car for most people.
Does that prove a direct correlation between reliability and panel gaps, or could it be merely a coincidence?
According to the article:
> "the Audi E-Tron and Volkswagen ID.4 were singled out as being unreliable"
So if Audi and VW are also unreliable then the panel gaps prove as a poor signal for reliability, which was my original point.
Edit after your reply below: Sure, Tesla has poor reliability, but not because it has poor panel gaps. Those two can be completely disconnected. Just because they coincide sometimes, doesn't make this a rule of thumb like some car snobs try to convince you of.
You can easily have cars with great panel gaps that are incredibly unreliable, and vice versa. Panel gaps mean nothing more than panel gaps.
I'm just pointing out that we can have both reliability and tight panel gaps. We have the technology. They are separate things.
As are different models within a single manufacturer. I love my Ford, would highly recommend it, but would never buy or recommend a Pinto or a Bronco II.
The point people typically make is that Tesla has uncommonly poor panel gaps, which point to poor quality and tolerance control in their manufacturing. This is a complex skill that automakers have been refining for 100 years. It is indicative of something, just as the quality of paint job indicates the care and quality with which a hot rod was built.
Sure, I definitely agree reliability is important, and that just because something can be build exactly to spec doesn't mean that spec is going to be reliable.
For me at least, i don't actually think of something like panel gaps as a reliability indicator, but rather it is one of many indicators of whether more quality of life stuff is going to go wrong (ie door rattling, buttons becoming loose or fiddly, etc). These things don't stop me from getting from A to B, but at that price point they're still important considerations.
Aren't those sport cars, basically? Luxury sport cars that don't sell comfort at all - they sell power, speed and "I am cool cause I am powerful and fast" look.
Just the sheer height of modern pickups and SUV is a safety nightmare (for others). I recently walked past a ferrari and I was shocked by how low it is to the ground and how inoffensive it looks nowadays compared to the tanks everyone has.
If a lambo was barreling towards me I could probably just hop over. Not that they would want to go particularly fast anyway in the city, if they care about the underside of the car.
Thing is, no one else has them. It's a real achievement for Tesla that the doors don't align with the body when every other car, no matter how cheap, manages to not do that.
What's sold in Europe at least.
So you'll forgive me that I don't trust the rest of the car either.
Source: I've driven a friend's brand new Tesla. The rear right door didn't align with the body.
Also I couldn't figure out how to manipulate the a/c, the turn signal stalk was too smart for me and kept turning the signals off at the wrong time * etc. Too bad about that engine.
* I have a feeling their designers only ever drove on wide american streets that have only 90 degree intersections. For the life of me i couldn't get the turn signal to stay when the main road was going right and i was trying to get on a secondary road that was like 30 degrees to the left. Probably because i was basically going straight ahead from the point of view of the car at the start.
> Do average joes, SUV driving soccer moms or suburban white collar workers go around with a ruler measuring their panel gaps with others like "yeah your Tesla is cool and all, but sorry, my Audi A5 has much tighter panel gaps which is what matters most you know"?
Average Joes and soccer moms in a typical suburban area cannot even afford Teslas and are extremely happy with their Odysseys, Seinnas and Pacificas. Even an Audi A5 is cheaper than a Model 3 in most cases and Audi's ride quality and cabin noise is extremely better than any Tesla I have ridden in. Audi interiors (though not as good as its other German competitors) beat Tesla by a mile.
As per this thread "average discerning German car buyer". I don't know why the fuck everyone else should give a shitb about the opinions of the "average discerning German car buyer". Is he some kind of Nordic ideal car buyer everyone else should aspire towards?!
Not once in my life has anyone talked about car panel gaps except on web forums when demonstrating Teslas or rubbish. I had one poster explain to me what is and what is not a luxury car. Alright man, good for you!
People may not use the term "panel gap" but "hey that Tesla looks like it has big gaps between the fender and door". Who the fuck cares what forums think when normal everyday people notice it too and may not know the word?
If the panel gap is not "neat", which is not the same as "small", then it looks bad.
I don't know if I could find a source, but it would probably be something like Forbes in the '80's: Lee Iacocca (of Chrysler) said that they learned from Japanese collaboration that if they made their gaps wider, then they appeared neater because they appeared parallel. And it was cheaper to make a wider gap, and it was easier for QA to pass the cars. Otherwise the cars would have to be whacked with mallets until the narrow gaps looked right, and that slows the line, and that indirectly adds cost.
[This doesn't mean that the Japanese collaborators were making huge panel gaps on their own cars, it simply indicates that Iacocca('s people) got a certain idea from them]
You'll care about panel gaps when there's snow in your trunk or blowing around in your cabin. You also might care that your car looks like it was in an accident and repaired by an amateur.
In a way though you're right - no one cared about panel gaps until Tesla came along because until then even the cheapest of the cheap manufacturers were able to get that right.
I use to read about the panels gaps on the Tesla and thought so what? Then as more Tesla's started to show up on the road and I saw what they were talking about I finally get it.
The cars looks like they were in an accident and had their body panels poorly repaired/reassembled.
I think that most car buying is motivated by far far more than delivered value. There's so much status and image wrapped up in cars that thigh there are some who care little about the car, nearly everyone chooses something that fits their perception of themselves.
The reason that there are so many super-expensive pickup trucks on the road is not because people are hauling around things that require a pickup, for example. And when combined with the face that pickup beds are becoming increasingly useless...
Umm, except the cars the average joe buys depreciate in value, while the supercars the rich buy usually apreciate in value, kind of like art, so wouldn't it make more sense that panel gaps are more important for that market?
Does having tighter panel gaps help with the resale value for the average joes?
Supercars absolutely depreciate in value minus select limited releases (which holds true for non-supercars as well). Look at standard Lamborghini Gallardos, Ferrari F430s/458s, and Aston Martins of any model and you will see that some of these cars are worth less than half what their original buyers paid for them.
This isn’t true. Your average super car does not appreciate in value when you consider factors like maintenance and the fact that you have to buy a bunch of other garbage to even be put on the delivery list for a desirable car’s production. For example, actually buying a top spec 911 isn’t feasible if you don’t have a good relationship with your dealer.
Notwithstanding the fact that the market for super cars is nothing like the market for Teslas or 5ers.
So far, Tesla has been incapable of stepping up to be a major car manufacturer. There are many small car manufacturers, some build exquisite cars that are technological and design marvels, but what Ford realized early, and Nagoya perfected (just consider how many modern op practices originated there!) is that it's not about the machine, but about the infrastructure.
This is both pre-sale, where you have to build a lean, mean, fast pipeline from vendors to assembly, and post-sales, where you have to have service infrastructure that spans continents, if not the world.
Tesla so far shows very little signs of being able to do either. And just like Whitley failed and ended up being bought by Mumbai, my personal bet (caveat lector!) is that Tesla-the-brand might survive, but Tesla-the-car-manufacturer would end up a subsidiary of a Chinese car manufacturer, who has the car manufacturing chops, but can't build a brand.
I have a Tesla, and love it (at least as much as I could ever love a car, I'd prefer a car-free life honestly).
The worst thing about it isn't the panel gaps or reliability (haven't had any problems). The worst part is Elon Musk and his fans. Shortly after getting the car three and a half years ago, I was leaving an outdoor party and a man who was a Musk superfan was doing that waving of arms of worship that you sometimes see fans do at metal conferences, and it was just embarrassing. Previously the same man had been gushing about full self driving, and I said there was no chance it would be delivered on time, if ever, and he professed his undying trust in Musk.
Combined with Musk's recent anti-Ukraine efforts, his hyper-partisan paranoia thay he's trying to push on Twitter, his hate for trans people, his hate for biological science exhibited throughout the pandemic and even today in his "jokes" about prosecuting Fauci, Musk is waging cultural war against every single aspect of my identity.
I hate Musk so so so much, and I know he had almost nothing to do with the creation of the car I like, but it still pains me everytime I get in it to know that I helped such a despicable person make a ton of money. Never again will I buy a Tesla, especially since there are now competitors. I'm sure I would hate all the rest of the auto execs almost as much if I knew as much about them as I know about Musk, but the nice thing is that I dont know a damn thing about Stellaris's CEO, from their name to their former partners. And there's a lot of value to that, as a customer.
Maybe Musk is just trying to win over conservatives and jackasses to but Teslas, but I doubt it. I think he's just a dangerous fool.
OTOH, people (at least online) like to talk out both sides of their mouth re" Tesla, saying on one hand "Musk isn't an engineer, didn't found the company, doesn't add anything to Tesla, etc etc" and then also "i'll never buy a tesla because of Musk".. like, if those are both the case then what about every other company and CEO? eBay's CEO collaborated to harass a random couple who posted critical articles, do they not use eBay? Adidas made untold billions from collabs with Kanye, do they boycott Adidas? CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart agreed to pay $13bn in a settlement over the opioid epidemic -- literally killing people! -- do they shop at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, or buy prescriptions from the companies that supply the opioids? Unethical Apple manufacturing practices... etc etc etc.
The point here, which is not 'whataboutism', is that there is seemingly no generalizable principle at play here, that for some reason Musk is a bridge too far in comparison with other companies that arguably do much, much more harm.
As somebody that doesn't use EBay and Adidas, sure, easy enough for me to avoid, but even for those I'm not sure I care as much, as the company isn't as much about the CEO. The opioid thing is a bit more tangential to the actual companies.
Whereas Musk is actually serving as a front man, greedily taking credit in a way that I never even saw Steve Jobs take credit for the work of others.
Musk's actions are also a very personal attack against my loved ones, in a way far more personal than drug stores selling opioids is. It's personal insults, and actions that are supporting the displacement of millions of family members's countrymen, deaths of more than a hundred thousand, and so many children's lives scarred. Pretty hard to compare Musk's actions to what Walgreens management did for the opiod crisis. Personal insults also go a really long ways towards negative polarization, whereas merely distributing prescribed drugs makes it a lot harder to fault drug stores.
Bill Burr has a funny bit about Steve being a marketer, not an inventor or engineer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew6fv9UUlQ8). I can't say I've seen Musk take credit for Tesla work any more than Steve did for Apple's, let alone greedily.
Don't discount the impact of the opioid crisis with more than a million dead (https://www.npr.org/2021/12/30/1069062738/more-than-a-millio...) -- those pharmacies did the math and decided double-digit billions was cheaper than a trial -- but I do see what you mean about the personal connection. What I'm wrapping my head around is I don't see anyone (not that that means they don't exist) saying their cousin died from opioid overdose so they're never shopping at CVS again, you know? The venn diagram of people who own an iphone and people who think sweatshops are evil is basically a circle, but Musk tweets something moronic about Fauci and everyone loses their shit.
Basically. I think Elon is a blowhard idiot who succeeds despite himself and have thought so since 2017.
But I purchased my Model 3 in 2021 because, after cross-shopping many car models and trying to optimize for the characteristics and features I wanted, it was the best thing at its price-point. And even now, even after the Twitter debacle, I still enjoy driving it every day. I couldn’t care less about the man who made the car; the product won on its merits.
I don't see why it would only cut in half, as opposed to settling on a profit margin similar to Toyota's (although it will be higher in dollars because it will be a percentage of the retail price).
> So far, Tesla has been incapable of stepping up to be a major car manufacturer.
When people make claims like this its just really fucking baffling. Like, are you so blinded by hate that you are unable to look up basic stastics?
Tesla is growing like gangbusters. In 2023 they will very sell pretty close to the same amount of as BMW, a company that has existed for 100 years.
They are overtaking more and more car companies all the time. They are in range of companies like Geely for example.
In fact, partly because of Tesla car companies have been merging. And these large mega companies are using sales volume.
Tesla is already making more profit then those companies, while also growing faster.
Like seriously, what about making record profits, fast growth and overtaking more and more large car companies in volume says 'incapable of stepping up to be a major car manufacturer'.
> is that it's not about the machine, but about the infrastructure.
> This is both pre-sale, where you have to build a lean, mean, fast pipeline from vendors to assembly, and post-sales, where you have to have service infrastructure that spans continents, if not the world.
You are joking right? Tesla has invested more in infrastructure then the other car makers. The super charger network. They have their own huge direct-to-consumer sales team. They have distribution centers all over the world that they own. They have vertically integrated their service and this for a long time was losing money, but as they grow is increasingly gone make money.
In addition to that they have built huge, vertically integrated factory parks that are bigger then almost everything anybody else is building. Go to Austin and see for yourself.
Tesla is investing in its own battery materials production and making its own battery in the same factory where they are making the cars. Literally nobody else has anything like that.
You statement is literally the opposite of correct. Tesla has exactly done what you suggest, a huge global investment in infrastructure.
> Tesla so far shows very little signs of being able to do either.
I'm sorry but are blind? Have you not look at Tesla numbers and statistics since 2014?
Because what you are saying is straight up delusional. Its not even open for interpretation.
Tesla made profit of 3 billion $ in Q3. That is while growing the amount of Super charger, amount of Service centers, amount of distribution centers, scaling two gigantic factory projects, investing in its own battery production and investing in self driving (including its own data centers).
> subsidiary of a Chinese car manufacturer
The largest manufactures in China are Geely and SAIC.
Tesla will produce more vehicles then Geely by next year and Tesla is already making far more money then Geely. SAIC is still a little bigger then that but Tesla is already beating them in terms of profit.
IDK, it seems like the people doing the work might have a better grasp on delivering for tesla than musk. I don't imagine tweeting promises that the engineers know they can't keep is that useful.
For me, the measure of whether an engineer counts as "real" is if they're empowered to say no.
You can have hundreds of qualified people who are called "engineers" and would be excellent in another environment, but if the culture is "If I say jump, you ask how high" you don't have an engineering culture, you have an autocracy.
> Mercedes is a real car company with real engineers and a gold-standard reputation to maintain
Totally agree with all your points against Tesla, but “gold-standard reputation” for Mercedes? Based on what? They are consistently rated as one of the worse brands reliability wise (Tesla usually being worse, but still).
It's interesting. I only buy older used cars. Mercedes is a brand I have owned a couple of times. Outside of a few specific engines and models, they are mechanically very reliable and very solidly built. Moreover, especially the older cars, are quite easy to work on for a home mechanic. Parts are readily available and are not really more expensive than for any other car I've owned, which includes several other German as well as Japanese and American brands.
If you are in that market, and stick with the older models that are proven to be reliable, they are pretty safe buys. Like any used car, a lot depends on the care given by the prior owner, but people who buy Mercedes cars new tend to have at least above-average income, and can afford to maintain them properly.
I've put well over a million km on Mercedes vehicles and not a single breakdown. That's anecdata, but compared with the other vehicles I've driven whose brands I will not mention their record for me at least has been outstanding.
That said: the newer generation is not for me, I had a C-class with automatic emergency breaking try to murder me twice and I've sold it and gotten something much older without that kind of accessory.
I've heard both sides, especially that the older models have been reliable. That phrase just seems to be particularly sticky (and that's what I understand it to mean). It makes me wonder on the point about maintenance.
Any car that you intend to drive for more than a few thousand miles will need maintenance. These are no different. But the engine design (chain, not belt for the timing) and the oil pump taken together are massive factors in ensuring that engines will last. I have a 25 year old SLK that I've passed on to other people several times now on the condition that when they stop using it they give it back and even though there are all kinds of smaller issues the engine runs like new.
Agree. Which makes it all the more frustrating that popular press focuses on irrelevant distractions, like the fact that if you try really hard, you can defeat the protections designed to ensure that the driver is ready to take over: https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/cr-engine...
A car is never going to prevent a determined individual from doing stupid things. But it is a big problem that people who are trying to be responsible are misled about what Tesla's "Full Self Driving" can actually deliver.
Tesla's solution offers a product that occasionally tries to kill you and people around you. The only reason it doesn't is because drivers are forced to pay attention and take over at a moment's notice at all times.
Mercedes' solution is a car company taking actual responsibility for their software. If they feel the lawsuits/insurance claims/legal snafus are worth the risk, that means their software is probably pretty damn good in that limited scope. Otherwise they could literally bankrupt the company with lawsuits! That's a lot more confidence inspiring to me than Elon's repeated pie-in-the-sky claims.
It's perfectly usable in its intended scope: it allows you to focus on other things while driving in heavy traffic. When they're confident that they can do so safely, they'll extend it to other situations.
Mercedes explains the purpose in their press release:
> Conditionally automated driving on suitable motorway sections where traffic density is high
> During the conditionally automated journey, DRIVE PILOT allows the driver to take their mind off the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities, be it communicating with colleagues via In-Car Office, surfing the internet or relaxing while watching a film. In DRIVE PILOT mode, applications can be enabled on the vehicle's integrated central display that are otherwise blocked while driving.
Based on that I'm assuming it's following other vehicles rather than following the road, which does make me wonder what happens when you get a clump of DRIVE PILOT vehicles which are all trying to follow each other.
Edit: It seems like it needs a vehicle ahead and under 60kph and uses a mix of other vehicles and road markings. It seems quite usable (but I still have to wonder how many vehicles you can get to follow each other in a chain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yiPaKfKLZs
It's the other way around. Tesla is selling an extremely expensive beta test that you can't use at all anywhere in any conditions with any kind of safety expectations.
Mercedes is selling a product that has a small set of well-defined cases where it can actually be used.
When I commuted in the city, there was a traffic jam almost every day, and I'd be stuck 15-20 minutes driving at walking speed. On especially bad days it could be up to 45min.
If I could have read my emails in that time it would have been really nice.
everyone knows that public transport is the solution to it but I can't buy a railroad track and a train to take to work so people are going to do what they can do
You can't personally buy a railroad but you can vote for people who will apply your tax dollars towards it instead of oil subsidies and auto bailouts :)
let's not turn this into a chain of saying obvious things that everyone involved already knows about, it's not going to add to the conversation and -hopefully- nor will it give you internet points in this website.
With it's current limitations, the only application for Mercedes' solution I can think of is during heavy traffic on highways. But calling it "not usable" does seem a bit harsh.
Of course if you prefer, move fast and brake... maybe
Traffic on highways is also by far the most frustrating part of driving basically for the same reasons it’s an easy-ish target for automation, so seems like a pretty good place to start.
Here is the full list of restrictions for the Drive Pilot legal liabities to take effect:
Roads need to be premapped ahead of time with LiDAR
Roads need to be pre-approved
Car cannot go above 37 MPH
limited-access divided highways with no stoplights
no roundabouts
no traffic control systems whatsoever
no construction zones
only operate during daytime
Reasonably clear weather
Without overhead obstructions
It is actually illegal to be going that slow on a highway, in Texas at least. This would simply be too dangerous to even allow.
Let me know of any other system that is even remotely close to being able to do the following:
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.
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.
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.
> (a)
An operator may not drive so slowly as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic, except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law.
> ...
> (c) If appropriate signs are erected giving notice of a minimum speed limit adopted under this section, an operator may not drive a vehicle more slowly than that limit except as necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law.
It's not safely operating a vehicle to go 40mph in 10mph traffic.
> It is actually illegal to be going that slow on a highway, in Texas at least.
I've been at a dead stop on many highways in Texas, along with hundreds of other cars around me. I see such things happening pretty often outside my office window.
Honestly, times when I'm going <37MPH on a controlled access highway is some of the most annoying driving that I'd like to have completely automated. That usually means I'm in stop and go traffic, some of the most grating time to drive. Both of my cars are mostly there, keeping safe distances and coming to a stop with cruise control, but definitely not completely automated yet.
So it works on freeways when there's congestion, and the speed of traffic is < 37 MPH? Sounds like adaptive cruise control with lane keep (and insurance coverage, which isn't nothing).
Texas has done a lot to increase the dangers caused by their roads, and don't seem like they plan to reroute. Just look at the current plans for the I-35, ffs.
Tesla was found to be deactivating the autopilot mode at the second before a crash [0]. I think it's for a dubious reason so that Tesla could declare none of their cars were in autopilot/FSD mode when involved in a crash.
"The agency’s analysis of these sixteen subject first responder and road maintenance vehicle crashes indicated that Forward Collision Warnings (FCW) activated in the majority of incidents immediately prior to impact and that subsequent Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) intervened in approximately half of the collisions. On average in these crashes, Autopilot aborted vehicle control less than one second prior to the first impact."
It's for PR, so that they can publicly release statistics showing good results on paper. An average consumer will learn the good-looking statistics and spread the word about Tesla safety, as it already happens, without taking the above report into account, since it's buried underneath tens of comments and I imagine Tesla will also fight it in some ways. Then, the average consumer will believe that FSD is indeed safer than a human driver, and buy the system. If crash happens, Tesla doesn't provide legal liability. I imagine most cases will be closed and, overall, Tesla will be at a profit, so why not do it?
at best the only value I'd see is the ability to have newspaper write "tesla SDV wasn't on when crash happened".. actually a good amount of PR leverage I admit
I've been testing FSD, and I WISH their system did more to limit its use in bad conditions. The perception (based on dashboard visualization) is much worse during rain, yes Tesla lets you keep using FSD even in heavy rain.
I'd been saying for years before anyone had L3 out that the working definition of L3 is simply that the manufacturer will assume liability while the vehicle is in charge.
I really wish they would cut this "Level" nonsense, that system was invented by business people, not engineers.
Interventions are more nuisanced than just "Did the driver intervene". Many times I intervene and take control while using Tesla FSD not out of safety reasons, but to be nice to other drivers, or for a smoother ride. It tends to love passing other cars on the right and not letting cars into merges, for example. It also brake a little hard at traffic jams, for instance, not nearly to a point where it would be a safety issue, but when I see a traffic jam far ahead I would begin decelerating much, much earlier just for the comfort of myself and passengers.
That said, FSD is nowhere near ready, I do have a huge number of safety related interventions as well, but reducing this to a number like L3 or L4 is trying to oversimplify a problem that isn't simple.
ADAS Levels were standardized by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Are you saying the Society of Automotive Engineers are all just business people and not engineers?
> Only allowed on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems
> Limited to a top speed of less than 40 mph
> Operates only during the daytime and in clear weather
Wait, don’t these things together mean it isn’t useful anywhere? Limited access roadways tend to be 50+ limits, going 40 or less on them other than in the adverse conditions ruled out by the third criterion would probably get you pulled over for obstructing traffic, unless you had Slow Moving Vehicle placards.
This 'level 3' is just a very cheap marketing trick. The system is a very simple highway traffic jam assistant. This trick plays with the misconception that ADAS levels actually determine how advanced the system is. They get to claim 'level 3' with a very simple system by assuming liability in those conditions. It's just marketing, and has nothing to do with actual capabilities of the system.
I mean personally the company assuming liability means A LOT more to me than how much the system can do. It's one thing to say your system can drive down a slick and curvy mountain road, and another thing to say you'll cover all liability if the car drives itself off the mountain. It's easy to write software the runs most of the time. This is our lives that we're talking about.
Liability is meaningless if it's limited to extremely low risk situations. Assuming liability in high risk conditions would be a big deal. Otherwise, its purpose is just to get mindshare for their 'level 3' tech, which in fact is just a self-driving starter project downloaded from Github.
Being liable still just means that it works most of the time and that they computed the cost of when it doesn‘t just like any insurance company. That‘s all there is to it.
Feels like the people here saying that Mercedes assuming liability doesn't matter are the same people who say it's your own fault if you lose your job and your healthcare and become poor.
If the car knows that it's about to be in an unavoidable accident and it is at fault, it has acknowledged that it has fucked up. To think that Mercedes wouldn't find itself in an expensive legal battle the first time that this happens would be ridiculous.
But I would expect that the disengagement is much less abrupt than what Autopilot/FSD do. From [0]:
> After consulting with the engineer in the passenger seat, I closed my eyes completely, and just eight or nine seconds later a prompt popped up asking me to confirm I was still alert. I ignored it, which soon started the 10-second countdown toward disengagement.
Which makes sense: if the point of the system is for you to be able to turn around and help your kids for a few seconds or watch a TV show on the center console, they simply can't expect that they can ding and have you regain control instantly.
From my understanding it's initially meant for use e.g. in slow moving traffic jams on highways. They're working towards getting it approved for up to 130kmh.
> From my understanding it's initially meant for use e.g. in slow moving traffic jams on highways.
I'm guessing the feasibility of this is very city-dependent. in LA, the usual traffic pattern is "drive 60-70 mph for 20 seconds, slow down to 5 mph for 60 seconds, repeat". (Granted that that's because of poor drivers, it would be better to have a consistent speed of 30 mph, but there's nothing Mercedes can do about that either way.)
I don't see how 'approval' is required for _anything_. Not for lane-keeping at high speeds, and not for Mercedes to take liability for accidents while their technology is active at high speeds.
Luckily, the law disagrees in most countries and you need to get a type approval before you can sell a new car type or new assistive technologies. I would not want to live in world where this is not the case.
> limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems
Yeah I don't understand where exactly this would be usable, at least around where I live. If it's a divided highway, it would have to have stoplights. Are there places where divided highways have stop signs?
My guess is that it's intended to be used in the entire State of Connecticut, between the hours of 8AM and 10AM and 4PM and 6PM. i.e. situations where the highway is doing its best impression of a Dunkin' Drive-Thru.
Signed, slightly-jaded person who drives the Boston<>NYC track enough to be slightly-jaded.
---
Or, Wareham -> Barnstable on Cape Cod, on any weekend morning for 6 months out of the year. Or 101 in the CA Bay Area during rush hour.
Basically, any time+place where the the thought of driving elicits an audible moan from the people then and there.
So it's basically adaptive cruise control with lane keeping? I guess they don't have to worry about turns that are too sharp (which an be troubling for lane-keep systems) because they're limiting it to freeways that are meant to be driven at 70 MPH, but only when the speed of traffic is half that.
They are also trying to convince regulators that they, not you, are legally responsible for any incidents. As long as you are ready to take over with a ten second warning.
Limited-access divided highway in this context means freeways and toll roads with walls to roadsides. It is generally considered acceptable to operate dangerous robot machines in a fenced off areas with enough precautions, and that isn't much different in philosophy to a self driving car on such a highway.
If you are thinking of places like Hamburg then the terms and conditions forbid it because the motorways in the Hamburg area are all construction zones and have been for at least the last five years that I have driven through them.
A limited-access divided highway does not have stoplights or stop signs, or any intersections at all. Cars enter and exit the roadway exclusively via on- or off-ramps.
A stop sign is a traffic control system, FWIW. They're saying a freeway, more or less, although the low top speed means really a freeway during congestion.
Just to piggy back on the 40mph callout, but I would like to see self driving cars never really drive more than 5mph under the speed limit. It would have a great calming effect on traffic. If they combine that with very conservative acceleration, it would be even better, much less of that rushing and accordion effect that's causing so many crashes.
Instead, Tesla fsd, at least from the youtube videos, looks like it's driving like a BMW-driver. Way way way too aggressive.
The biggest contributors to car crashes is speed and not enough distance from car in front. If self-driving cars would exaggerate the basic premises of safe driving, low speed, low acceleration, long distance, ... it would be really good for traffic overall imho.
Driving significantly slower than the pace of traffic is dangerous. If the average pace of traffic is 5mph over but your car won't go faster than 5 under, you're now going 10mph less than everyone around you.
That's the cope people use for habitual speeding. 10mh is not significant differential. 30 vs 60 on a highway, sure, 55 vs 65, not at all.
You should actually try it once. Go five under the speed limit and keep generous distance with the car in front of you. You'll barely notice it. Traffic will be ahead of you, you won't pass anybody. The biggest thing to get over is the ego-thing.
As you are doing this, then also pay attention to your capacity to act on any emergency stop you may have to make (dog sprinting across, car slamming their breaks, ...) and how much much more time and capacity you will have to respond.
The other thing that peoples mind immediately go to multi-lane highways. Never the other 70-80% of driving, in town, single lanes, where going slower is always manifestly better.
I've seen it many times before. I got people bunching up behind me, riding my bumper, cutting me off, swerving around me, causing near misses in other lanes as they cut other people off trying to pass. It causes backups near ramps to get on and off highways, backups which often result in rear end collisions, partially because...ding ding ding speed differentials.
Also, acting in capacity to react in an emergency is more about following distance than speed. And yeah, as speed increases a driver needs to increase their follow distance. Something that I agree loads of people fail at doing and then complain about their ADAS systems always slamming on the brakes suddenly.
> where going slower is always manifestly better.
Just tell that to all the cyclists going < 20mph in 40-50MPH roads. They're way safer going that speed than those fools driving their cars near the speed limit. It's often not safe for them, partially because...speed differentials. To solve this, we shouldn't just restrict cars to only go cycling speeds, we should build infrastructure so similar speed traffic is grouped together and separate, reducing...speed differentials.
If I started driving my car 5mph in a 40mph road, I'd probably cause more accidents than if I just went along with traffic at 43mph.
Overwhelming majority of time I was driving on highway, the right lane went below speed limit. That makes up quite a lot of cars that go below it.
And I used to drive exactly speed limit (as measured by GPS) and that maded me among the faster cars on highway. Only few cars went faster then me.
I made effort to slow down lately and can confirm that the biggest and only issue to overcome is the ego and the knee jerk "being there faster makes you better driver" kind of thinking.
My typical speed on the highway is speed limit plus 10% (so 60 in a 55 for example). That puts me right at the sweet spot for the middle of three lanes where I live. My exit is the last one before the highway drops to 2 lanes and gets a lot of use as it quickly becomes rural after that.
I will regularly get passed by someone going 75mph or more (in a 55) in the left lane when traffic allows those speeds. It's about 50-50 whether I pass them back when we get to the stop light at the end of my exit ramp a few miles later.
On a typical commute or trip around town, driving way faster than everyone frequently doesn't get you to your destination any sooner. It does make things more dangerous and unpredictable though.
> Just tell that to all the cyclists going < 20mph in 40-50MPH roads
That's again a 20-30 speed deferential, not to mention a huge difference in weight. We're talking about a 5-10 one between cars.
Also, if it's a heavy freight truck going 20 in a 40mph single lane. yeah, no issue at all with that speed deferential isn't there? Maybe the problem is here the inattentive, impatient drivers plowing through the cyclist?
> acting in capacity to react in an emergency is more about following distance than speed
The cars in front are not the only hazards.
Overall, I think you're making it too extreme. I'm not saying you should be going 20 on a highway. I'm saying going 5 under a posted speed limit is actually very reasonable, and it's what self driving cars (and human drivers) should do. It will reduce crashes. I think we disagree there.
> Maybe the problem is here the inattentive, impatient drivers plowing through the cyclist?
It's not just cars that become inattentive, and I agree the ultimate fault of those accidents are with the operator not paying attention. I've have cyclists swerve in front of me pretty close seemingly unaware I was there as they cut over for a left turn at the last second without signaling. Or cyclists blast through an intersection without stopping despite me already properly starting to go through the intersection. It's not like only people in cars make mistakes. However, speed differentials still increase risks. Reducing speed differentials and encouraging everyone to go about the same speed is better than having a mixture of speeds in the same traffic flow. Mixed speeds cause friction, friction increases the likelihood of accidents.
> Also, if it's a heavy freight truck going 20 in a 40mph single lane. yeah, no issue at all with that speed deferential isn't there?
No, there's still the exact same issues with that speed differential. People bunching up, lots of changing lanes, differences in speeds, etc. Sure, sometimes equipment needs to take roads and just can't or can't safely operate near the posted speed limit. I'd still say that equipment is causing more traffic flow issues, and thus more chances for accidents, being a slow member in traffic compared to all the other cars going about the same speed as each other. But they do have a right to use the roads, and I do agree people just need to deal with the disruption and be better operators around those obstructions. In the end there's still little excuse for cutting people off and changing lanes without watching, but if they never had to change lanes...
> I'm saying going 5 under a posted speed limit is actually very reasonable,
Going 5 under can be reasonable, I agree. There are lots of instances where one can do it safely, and increase the safety of those around them. If I'm driving down a residential street posted at 30mph but there's a high likelihood of pedestrians popping out from around parked cars, I'll drive under the speed limit, often 5mph+
I definitely disagree that individuals should subject themselves to a hard rule of always driving 5mph under the posted speed limit though. It all depends on what's the reality of the situation at the moment. If everyone is already going well over the posted speed limit, going well under it isn't going to increase overall safety. If the roads would benefit from traffic going slower, the speed limit should be changed and the road should be modified to encourage lower speeds.
If the roads should be 5mph slower, we should redesign it so everyone goes slower, not just some small percentage of cars while everyone else blasts past without immediate consequence.
Could a lot of our roads be safer if we redesigned them to make people drive slower? Sure. If I cause traffic congestion and drive in a way that's outside other driver's expectations I'm not making things safer though, I'm causing problems.
They're willing to take liability for it, so they're confident enough that their legal team and accountants are satisfied. If Tesla were at that point I think most people here would be content, no need to definitively prove anything.
Ah yes, all's I have to do to get justice if I get killed by a Mercedes run amok is to take on a multi-billion dollar legal team. That makes me confident.
The fact that they accept liability is precisely to avoid [your next of kin] needing to "take on a multi-billion dollar legal team" if you get killed by a Mercedes run amok. Now then, if on the other hand you were to get killed by a Tesla run amok...
A big company being responsible for a crash is best case scenario. You would much rather sue Mercedes than Joe Shmoe for an accident, no doubt. They've got deep pockets, and your local courts are not particularly friendly to them
Any person who knows what they're talking about is asking Tesla to have an appropriate development process for safety critical systems.
Tesla's system are unsafe, by default, if they don't follow safety life cycle. And they don't - I saw dick-sharing apps that had better life cycle processes.
A lot of people seem to think that even a single accident is unacceptable. Quite a few of the comments on this site and others about self-driving cannot be explained without understanding that the poster has that belief, at least implicitly.
We are lucky that our ancestors were not so risk averse, because if they were we would not have cars at all, or airplanes.
> A lot of people seem to think that even a single accident is unacceptable. Quite a few of the comments on this site and others about self-driving cannot be explained without understanding that the poster has that belief, at least implicitly.
That makes sense to me. I'm happy to accept the presence of full self-driving technology on the roads, for other people, once it has an accident rate comparable to or slightly better than humans.
I personally won't use one until it is so much safer than a human that the level of safety is the #1 feature though. Until then, what's the upside? I can screw around on my phone more often? I do that too much already, and it's not the kind of benefit that cancels out the potential downside of "...but you died because of an unhandled edge case in version 27.1.828 of our software that you as an attentive human would have easily handled, which was fixed in the next release" which just seems like such a banal way to go for more screen time.
I don't think my take is drastically out of the mainstream. It also seems to me the main thing separating my point of view from "ban all FSD until perfect" is a willingness to let other people make choices I don't think are good.
Yes, I see some people promote that idea but that was never the expectation on the part of the self-driving car creators, or the regulators. They also don't expect cars to be able to solve complex philosophical questions regarding trolleys. Nor does the general public have that expectation.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect an FSD vehicle to never be involved in an accident. I do expect it to never be the cause of an accident. I really don't feel that is unreasonable.
- Only allowed on limited-access divided highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control systems
- Limited to a top speed of less than 40 mph
- Operates only during the daytime and in clear weather
But the big promise from Mercedes is that it would take legal liability for any accidents that occurs during Drive Pilot's operation, something that Tesla doesn't appear to be even thinking about wrt Autopilot and FSD.
I would love someone to goad/challenge Tesla to step up to Mercedes. If FSD is so much better than Drive Pilot, then why doesn't Tesla agree to provide a "safe mode" for FSD, that operates with the exact same restrictions as Mercedes' D-P, and offers the same legal protections to any users who happen to get into accidents during "safe mode" FSD operation?
[0] https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a39481699/what-happens-if-...