Recently, BMW 7 Series has been approved in Germany to carry out automatic driving at a speed of 60 km / h on highways, and BMW's China R&D team has also launched the localization research and development of L3 driving assistance in China. In mid-September, BMW Group announced at a communication meeting held in Beijing that the L3 driver assistance production version will be equipped on the 7 Series at the end of 2023 or early 2024, and the system will use a new LiDAR.
At the same time, Mercedes-Benz is also promoting the expansion of the application range of L3 level driving assistance, following the Mercedes-Benz Drive Pilot in Germany at high speed landing, California and some roads in the United States landed last year, Mercedes-Benz plans to promote the implementation of Drive Pilot in California and Nevada by the end of 2023, and it is expected that some EQS models will be equipped with this system by the end of the year, and expand to S-class and more EQS models by 2024. The system is priced at $2500/year for a subscription in the United States.
It is worth mentioning that BMW and Mercedes-Benz both call the L3 level autonomous driving, and the driver can leave the steering wheel on both sides under designated road conditions, hand over the vehicle to the intelligent system for autonomous driving, and the driving speed is specified below 60 kilometers per hour. In this case, in the event of an accident, the vehicle manufacturer is responsible.
It seems that the old European car companies have begun to overtake and enter the most critical competitive field in the future - intelligent driving. Can be responsible, but need to come according to the regulations, which is different from the current mainstream practice in China, compared with the first echelon of intelligent driving assistance in China, has actually achieved L3 driving ability, but the conditions of use are more relaxed.
For example, Xpeng NGP has achieved an average takeover frequency of 1,000 kilometers on the highway, but it still requires the driver to always pay attention to the road conditions and be ready to take over the vehicle, of course, the premise is that you can drive according to the road speed limit of 120km/h, and even it allows you to float to 130km/h, as long as it is within the legal range, but if something happens, the owner is still responsible.
N Comments: It can be seen that Chinese brands and European veterans have different understandings and routes for promoting the development of intelligent driving, of course, they also have their own national conditions, as far as I personally understand, Chinese the current pace of work and life, they are not allowed to drive at a speed of 60km/h in a long-distance trip. Therefore, the approach taken by Chinese car companies is more in line with our current needs. However, we still have to remind all friends who use intelligent driving assistance systems to have full safety awareness and do not rely too much on the system.