In Mercedes you can leave hands in driving

Mercedes is the first to allow a level 3 autonomous driving system, meaning without having to touch the steering wheel and the option to remove the eyes from the road completely.

And of course there is a very big "but"

Keenan Cohen

08/05/2022

Sunday, 08 May 2022, 19:44 Updated: 22:43

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Mercedes Autonomous Driving System (Manufacturer)

After repeated promises that "you will all sit in autonomous cars driving alone" and the fact that this term was the magic word of the previous decade in the automotive industry, today most manufacturers have sobered up and expect their statements and promises in small and big stars - so when it comes to autonomous cars. A surprisingly far-reaching road, the car traveling alone is not visible on the horizon.

And yet, in the competition among automakers, the first to take the first step and introduce a car with level 3 autonomous capabilities is a Mercedes.

Level 3 (out of 5) autonomous capabilities mean allowing the driver to remove his hands from the wheel and eyes from the road on pre-defined road sections where the car on its systems manages the ride.

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To the full article

Possibility to remove the eyes from the road and the hands from the steering wheel - under certain conditions (Photo: Manufacturer's website)

What enables these capabilities is an array of sensors, radars, ladders (laser radar), cameras and state-of-the-art location sensors and even sensors that measure the humidity of the road surrounding the car.

All of these together create accurate imaging in the most detailed way in the industry today according to Mercedes, a three-dimensional imaging that is necessary to allow the car to "position" itself in space.

Another component in the system is the possibility of communication between the vehicle and various infrastructure devices, the so-called V2X.

A broadcast that includes information such as traffic congestion, road works, accidents or road accidents.

In the asterisks of the operation of the chariot: it is still very expensive - it is an additional $ 5,000, which is currently offered only on the two flagships of this manufacturer with the internal combustion engines the S-Class or the electric one - the Mercedes EQS.

It will only be able to operate on pre-defined highways, is currently only approved for operation in Germany and only up to a speed of 60 km / h.

Will also be offered at EQS (Photo: Manufacturer's website)

But with all due respect to Mercedes' achievement, it mostly teaches about what is no more than about what is.

Reminder: Already in 2017 Germany was the first to produce the legal infrastructure for driving vehicles at autonomy level 3 but the regulations themselves were only approved in 2021.

In addition, the fact that such a system, with a very limited scope of use comes in 2022 when "visionaries" talked about fully autonomous cars already in 2021.

Further, at a price of $ 5,000, this is a system that still has a long way to go before it reaches a price level that will allow it to be assimilated in more popular cars as well, true, as was the case with almost all advanced technology, but here there is a difference.

When it comes to autonomous cars, it is now accepted that the optimization of the operation of autonomous cars depends very much and especially on the amount of these vehicles on the spell as long as these do not reach critical mass, they will continue to be relatively limited in their distribution.

And another point concerns the current crisis, that of chip supply.

When many automakers are forced to stop production lines, release cars without certain features, or go back to using simpler chips - it's hard to see them sacrificing so much for so little.

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Tags

• Mercedes

• Autonomous car

• Autonomous vehicle