More than 200 years ago, the founder of Mercedes-Benz brought the first car to the world, and today, more than 200 years later, Mercedes-Benz has opened a new chapter in the field of autonomous driving assistance systems.
Recently, Mercedes-Benz's advanced autonomous driving assistance system DRIVE PILOT has been approved by the relevant Authorities in Germany to carry out "conditional automatic" driving on German highways. The system also became the world's first certified L3 level autonomous driving system.
Compared with the self-driving taxi "Robtaxi" running in individual sections, Mercedes-Benz's automatic driving assistance system may not be much, but Mercedes-Benz's attitude is groundbreaking, and the official said that when Mercedes-Benz equipped with a Drive Pilot system is in the case of assisted driving, Mercedes-Benz will bear legal responsibility for the operation of the vehicle.
This means that when an accident occurs with Drive Pilot, the driver will not be held liable. It should be noted that at present, only Mercedes-Benz in the world dares to make such a statement.
The responsibility for autonomous driving is uncertain Mercedes-Benz made a good start
When it comes to the term "autonomous driving", you may first think of Tesla Autopilo, Baidu Apollo, NIO NOP, Xiaopeng XPILOT and other names, but then you will immediately think of "who is in trouble".
In 2019, there was a case in the United States in which the Tesla Model S rear-ended the Honda Civic caused the death of two people in the Civic car, and a very attractive point of the case was that before the accident, the Model S was turned on Autopilot, that is, Tesla's autopilot function. Thus began a discussion about "who bears the responsibility?"
Whether the owner misused the automatic driving assistance system or the vehicle's automatic driving assistance system to cause the car accident is difficult to determine. This kind of thing has happened in the country. One of the more well-known ones is "the unfortunate death of Lin Wenqin, the founder of MeiyiHao Company, in a traffic accident while driving". After Lin Wenqin died in a car accident, the official WeChat public account of "Mei Yihao" released an obituary on August 14, saying that Lin Wenqin had a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of the Shenhai Expressway after driving the WEILAI ES8 car to enable the automatic driving function (NOP pilot state) and unfortunately passed away.
After Lin Wenqin's death, the discussion about the "division of responsibility for automatic driving" was very loud, and at that time, many bigwigs in the industry stood up and spoke out, and some bigwigs also pointed the spearhead at "propaganda misleading". Shen Hui, founder of WM Motor, published his personal views on the "popularization of assisted driving but frequent accidents" on his personal social platform. He believes that the L2 level auxiliary driving function, the driver is the main body of functional operation, but also the main body of responsibility. L4 or above level automatic driving function, in the unmanned state of the car, the operating body is the vehicle itself, and the responsible entity belongs to the main engine factory.
"To avoid exaggerated publicity caused by the misunderstanding of user use, restraint in promotion, and investment in technology are beneficial to users, industries, and enterprises for a long time." Li Xiang, the founder of Ideal Auto, suggested that the industry should unify the standard of Chinese terms for autonomous driving and avoid misunderstanding of user use caused by exaggerated publicity. "L2, L3 and other terms, users can not understand, it is recommended to unify the name: L2 = assisted driving; L3 = automatic assisted driving; L4 = automatic driving; L5 = unmanned driving, a redundant Chinese word should not be required."
Zhou Hongyi, founder and chairman of 360, also said, "Artificial intelligence is not a marketing trick, it is not so magical, autonomous driving, unmanned driving still have a lot of roads to go, pits to fill, can not be for marketing and mislead users." He believes that L2 to L5 are all black words for the industry's self-amusement, and should be expressed in a simple concept that ordinary users can see at a glance.
As for the final division of responsibility for the incident, it was not publicly reported to the public. However, this incident has begun to make people reflect that the L2 level automatic driving assistance system, even the L2+ automatic driving assistance system is not a reason for the driver to release the steering wheel, although we still see some car owners using the automatic driving assistance system incorrectly.
Today, Mercedes-Benz's statement undoubtedly makes a good start for the industry, and the responsibility for the autonomous driving assistance system is assigned to the car company itself. Of course, not without conditions, Mercedes-Benz's autopilot assistance system is only available for certain highways with speeds below 40 miles per hour (64.3 kilometers per hour), and when the user activates Drive Pilot, the user will no longer be legally responsible for the operation of the car until it automatically disengages or you manually shut it down.
In other words, outside of the limited scenario, the user is still the responsible subject, which is also related to the widely accepted definition of L3 level automatic assisted driving, that is, the system can replace the driver under certain conditions.
Regulations recognize autonomous driving assistance systems Mercedes-Benz has made another good start
"If something goes wrong" certainly unveils the precedent for car companies to assume the responsibility of automatic driving assistance systems, the significance of Mercedes-Benz's action in automatic driving assistance systems is by no means limited to Mercedes-Benz's courage to admit its responsibility as a system provider.
Technically, perhaps Mercedes-Benz's Drive Pilot is not the only autopilot assistance system that can achieve "conditional automatic" driving, but so far, Mercedes-Benz's Drive Pilot is the only L3 level system in the world that operates legally, that is, "licensed and legally doing business".
The division of responsibility for accidents caused by automatic driving assistance systems is difficult to determine, which has a considerable relationship with the imperfection of laws and regulations in this regard, and even the relevant regulations on "automatic driving" are basically in a "vacuum state" in some countries, such as the mainland. At present, although some regions in the mainland have formulated relevant management regulations on "automatic driving", such as the "Regulations on the Administration of Intelligent And Connected Vehicles in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Draft for Comments)" issued by Shenzhen in March last year, which is the first intelligent networked vehicle management regulation in the country, which divides intelligent networked vehicles into three technical levels of conditional automatic driving, highly automated driving and fully automatic driving, and makes specific provisions for the use and management of different levels of vehicles, but the management regulations have not yet been formally implemented.
In general, there is still an obvious legal vacuum on the road of autonomous vehicles in the mainland, and the division of rights and responsibilities in the event of traffic accidents is not clear enough, which hinders the faster landing of automatic driving technology and affects the enthusiasm of some enterprise layouts to some extent. During the recent two sessions, many deputies and members suggested speeding up the revision and implementation of relevant laws and regulations.
Chen Hong, deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of SAIC Motor, suggested that it is necessary to clarify the legal status of the automatic driving system, formulate standard rules and disposal mechanisms for the division of responsibilities, and establish a grade evaluation and certification system and access mechanism for the automatic driving system. Zeng Qinghong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of the GUANGZHOU Automobile Group, also suggested that the relevant provisions of the Road Traffic Safety Law be revised, the definition of robot drivers and the division of responsibilities be added, and the study and establishment of a more perfect special law on intelligent driving should be immediately launched. Li Yanhong, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of Baidu, suggested that the Road Traffic Safety Law be revised to guide and support local governments to introduce policies to clearly support unmanned vehicles without safety officers on the road.
Mercedes-Benz's Drive Pilot has become the only L3 level system in the world to operate legally, or Germany allows high or fully automated driving systems to replace human autonomous driving, giving it the same legal status as drivers, which undoubtedly provides regulatory experience for the further development of China's autonomous driving assistance systems.
At present, in cities such as "Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen", autonomous vehicles such as self-driving taxis and unmanned express delivery vehicles have begun to drive on test roads, and some have even entered the commercial trial operation stage, such as Baidu Apollo. This may have proved to some extent the feasibility of the full implementation of "automatic driving" technology, followed by the industry's continuous improvement of "automatic driving" technology and national policies and regulations.