If earlier, asked which self-driving technology is stronger, Tesla? Waymo？ Huawei? It's hard to say, but after March 22, there is no doubt that it will be Mercedes-Benz.
Because Mercedes-Benz actually announced that "something happened to me". When you drive a Mercedes with an L3-level Drive Pilot and turn on assisted driving, Mercedes-Benz will be legally responsible for the operation of the vehicle.
This is the world's first company to announce that car companies rather than drivers bear legal responsibility during the autonomous driving period, Mercedes-Benz brought humans into the era of internal combustion locomotives more than a hundred years ago, and will take the lead in the era of automatic driving today.
The current Audi A8 launched in 2017 announced that it can achieve L3 level automatic driving assistance capabilities in urban congestion and car conditions. But on the production car, the A8 didn't really open up the L3 function.
Including Tesla, Huawei, Waymo, Xiaopeng, Weilai, etc. can now achieve an approximate L3 level, FSD, NOP, etc. can fully autonomously complete the autonomous driving and decision-making of vehicles under specific conditions. Of course, in terms of publicity, they have not explicitly proposed to reach the L3 level.
The main reason is that, according to the division of automatic driving capabilities, L3 is conditional automatic driving, and when the system does not meet the conditions for automatic driving, the driver needs to intervene to take over. This creates difficulties in the division of responsibilities. When the L3 automatic driving system is turned on, the driver can watch the video and play the mobile phone without paying attention to the road conditions, but when the vehicle needs to take over, how to ensure that the driver responds in time, and how long should the response window be?
That is, allowing the driver to do other things while also requiring the driver to be ready to take over at any time, L3 itself is contradictory. Therefore, many car companies, such as Ford, Volvo, etc., have announced that they have crossed the ambiguous L3 and directly headed for the L4.
In addition to the reasons for the L3 autonomous driving technology itself, policies and regulations are also one thing that has to be considered.
On the road to L3 compliance, Honda is a pioneer. It launched the Legend EX in Japan in 2020, full of hardware, including 5 lidar, 5 millimeter-wave radar, dual current-view cameras and 12 ultrasonic radars, and Japan's re-revised regulations for L3-level autonomous driving, making the model the first model to achieve L3 on the road.
However, the Honda Legend EX equipped with L3-level autopilot assist function has only produced 100 vehicles, which is difficult to call a production car. And only passed the Local Regulations of Japan, only rented and not sold, the term is 3 years, more like a honda set up by the community to apply for an autonomous driving test fleet.
At the end of 2021, Mercedes-Benz announced that it was approved by the German government department to pass the CERTIFICATION OFECE R157 standard and obtain the qualification of L3 autonomous driving on the road in Germany. UNECE is a series of EU vehicle access regulations, after Germany, the contracting states of the regulations will gradually allow the L3 vehicles that meet the regulations on the road, while Mercedes-Benz is also conducting a large number of tests in major markets such as The United States and the United States, and after the regulations allow, it is also expected to open these markets in the future.
R157 is UNECE's first official regulation on autonomous driving. Its full name is "Uniform provisions concerning the approval of vehicles with regard to Automated Lane Keeping Systems", which is a specification for the ALKS automated lane keeping system.
The regulation makes several important provisions for L3 automatic driving, including the condition range under which the ALKS system operates (below 60km/h, single lane, etc.), the maximum driver takeover response time (10s), the disposal of the driver when the driver is out of time and does not take over (minimal risk operation, such as slow deceleration, opening double flash and stopping), and the following distance.
Starting from the first half of 2022, the S-class and EQS-class will be equipped with the Drive Pilot system, with up to 26 sensors, including cameras, lidar, millimeter wave radar, ultrasonic radar, etc., as well as centimeter-level high-precision maps, which are allowed to drive L3 autonomously at a maximum speed of 60 km/h on Germany's 13,191 km long highway network.
L3's conditions are restrictive: it can only be used on high-speed roads and traffic jams (up to 60 km/h), the system cannot change lanes, even if the ALKS can perform sharp braking and steering when a vehicle is about to collide, but it must not cross the lane line when turning. After the emergency operation, the ALKS will return to normal operation.
In terms of functionality, the Drive Pilot, which only provides single-lane capability, seems to be weaker than the high-speed pilot assistance currently used by Tesla, Xiaopeng, NIO, etc. that can automatically change lanes, overtake, and get on and off ramps. But the core of it is that the driver is completely liberated, and sleeping during the L3 enablement may not work, but watching videos and playing mobile phones are allowed. In this state, the user does not need to observe the road conditions, and the responsibility for the traffic accident of the vehicle lies with the car company.
Yes, when the vehicle is opened to drive the Drive Pilot system for L3 level driving, the responsibility for all traffic accidents caused by the vehicle is borne by Mercedes-Benz. Is it that Mercedes-Benz can't do such cross-lane auxiliary functions as Tesla, Xiaopeng and Weilai? It is not that strict scope of use is only to conservatively, firmly, and thoroughly guarantee the safety of autonomous driving behavior of vehicles without the observation of the driver. Or, to put it more harshly, minimize the risk of liability borne by car companies.
In addition to a large number of sensors, such as lidar, which is considered critical to autonomous driving, there are also a large number of redundant backups in order to ensure safety: the centimeter-level high-precision positioning system will constantly send the vehicle driving data to the cloud to update the map data, even if the sensor is damaged, it can be accurately located; the braking and steering systems have backups, and if the safety-related system fails, the technology will be switched to the replacement system; the on-board network, automatic driving chip, and so on have redundancy.
The national standard for automatic driving GB/T 40429-2021 "Automobile Driving Automation Classification" clearly defines level 0 to level 2 or driving assistance, and from level 3 onwards, "assist" is removed and directly named after automatic driving. Only by removing the driver from the automatic driving process can the word "assist" be removed from the leaflet.
As a "life-and-death" technology, automatic driving has caused many controversies, especially the dispute between the expression of "automatic driving" and "driver assistance" highlights the contradiction between the application of new technologies and the protection of safety in car companies today. When advertising, the technology is better than anyone, but when it comes to responsibility, it belongs to the driver's improper use.
As the big brother of the automotive industry, Mercedes-Benz has taken an indispensable step forward in the historical process of upgrading L2 to L3 and transferring the main body of autonomous driving accidents with a more responsible attitude.
This article is written by The Kickbox Gang Route 64