Mercedes Will Take The Blame For Autonomous Driving Crashes

The US has already been making great strides towards autonomous driving, recently approving legislation that would allow purpose-built autonomous cars to forego steering wheels altogether. But Mercedes is currently in talks with the states of California and Nevada to get approval for this level 3 software by the end of the year, and taking responsibility for what may happen is a big step towards this. The USA has very few federal regulations pertaining to such systems, with most legislation passed independently by the various states. For that reason, Mercedes will start its negotiations with forward-thinking states like Nevada and California and take it from there.

One of the reasons Mercedes is willing to assume liability is that it believes Drive Pilot has enough redundancy baked in to ensure supreme safety, relying on LiDAR, GPS, Galileo, and GLONASS satellites.

Unlike current Level 2 systems which can switch off automatically at a moment's notice, Drive Pilot will provide a 10-second warning, so you can put your book down and reassume control of the vehicle. This includes scenarios where an emergency vehicle may be approaching. These systems are not yet at the level at which they can automatically pull to the side to clear a path for emergency vehicles, so instead, it provides fair warning so the driver can do so. It uses cameras and microphones to listen and look for cues like sirens and flashing lights with enough time to safely hand off driving responsibilities to the person in the driver's seat.

The system is the next step towards full autonomy, but while current Level 2 systems can be used across most roads, and even within cities, Drive Pilot is limited to a very select grouping of highways with no stoplights, roundabouts, or other traffic control measures. These roads must be mapped beforehand by Mercedes, which has already performed the necessary mapping in Nevada and California.

Other situations that will preclude the use of the system include inclement weather, and with 10 seconds for the driver to reassume control, it should go without saying that you can't doze off or occupy any seat other than the driver's position.

Once Mercedes receives approval, we can expect this tech to roll out in cars like the S-Class and Mercedes EQS, and perhaps soon, we might even get SAE Level 4 autonomy in the form of Mercedes Intelligent Park Pilot, an almost completely driver-free parking valet developed with Bosch. Mercedes is currently evaluating the US market to see whether this possibility can become a reality.