Mercedes-Benz was approved as the world's first autopilot system higher than Tesla's L2 level

Commercial Password December 12 (No Shadow) News, yesterday, the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) has approved the system in accordance with the technical approval regulation UN-R157, thus paving the way for the international availability of such systems as permitted by national legislation. It is understood that the autonomous driving system of Mercedes-Benz, Daimler's luxury car brand, will become the world's first so-called L3 level system approved by regulators, which is higher than Tesla's Autopilot's L2 level.

Mercedes-Benz's Drive Pilot was approved with extremely strict conditions on the road:

Only 13,000 km of the domestic motorway network in Germany. Other countries can only be unlocked if they are approved. This can only be achieved on Mercedes-Benz's S series and EQS series.

Mercedes-Benz's operating range control is actually more stringent: the Drive Pilot can only be activated on pre-mapped, geo-fenced and closed highways, and can only operate at speeds of up to 37 miles (about 60 km/h).

The German Motor Transport Authority has publicly stated that it is satisfied with the safety of Mercedes-Benz's Drive Pilot system.

Drive Pilot adjusts the information based on speed and distance to keep the vehicle in the lane. Routes, obstacles, and road signs are documented and considered. According to Mercedes-Benz, the system can also react to unexpected situations, such as evasion operation or brake operation.

The Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot is a true autonomous driving system, not a driver assistance system. It combines radar, cameras, lidar, microphones (used to detect emergency vehicles) and humidity sensors, plus the car's high-precision GNSS to locate the car on a high-definition map.

Once activated, Drive Pilot will take over control of the car. The system can handle unexpected traffic situations and take circumvention actions if necessary.

The German approval means that Mercedes-Benz can offer Its Mercedes-Benz S-Class models equipped with The Drive Pilot to German customers in the first half of 2022.

Last week, a New York Times investigative report interviewing 19 former employees uncovered a number of questions about the safety design of Tesla's Autopilot system.

For example, since 2016, Musk has declared on Twitter at least 10 times that "full self-driving will be achieved soon", but after a few years, Tesla still requires that autopilot system users must be fully focused and ready to take over.

Until recently, what happened on the road about the system was at the heart of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's investigation. In this investigation, there were at least 12 accidents related to Autopilot, resulting in 1 death and 17 injuries.

These former employees broke the news to the New York Times that the interior initially insisted on a comprehensive hardware solution for cameras, radar and other sensors, and even hoped to use lidar, but Musk insisted that "humans can only drive with two eyes, which means that its planning should be able to use cameras alone to drive."

Germany has also banned Tesla from having the words "fully autonomous driving" in its pages and ads sold in Germany.

UnR157 Decree is comprehensive and detailed in its requirements for lane keeping systems (ALKS), from system safety, fail-safe response, human-machine interface, DSSAD, to automotive data and information security and software upgrades.

It can be seen that Mercedes-Benz has overtaken Tesla in the field of automatic driving and become the leading enterprise in the field of automatic driving.