Mercedes-Benz Beats Tesla in Selling Level 3 Autonomous Cars in the US

Mercedes-Benz is bringing Level 3 autonomous vehicles to the US, the first automaker to do so.

While Tesla calls its driver assistance system “Full Self-Driving” and CEO Elon Musk promises Level 4 or 5 autonomy but doesn’t deliver on it, it’s actually Mercedes-Benz that has officially achieved the feat of getting a Level 3 car on a US street.

The “Level” information refers to the level of driving automation from SAE International. Level 2 and below refer to various driver assistance functions that can perform certain functions such as steering, acceleration and braking, but the driver must constantly monitor them and intervene when necessary.

Levels 3, 4 and 5 refer to fully automated driving, but the differences between them are enormous. A vehicle with Level 3 automation can drive itself, but may require driver takeover. It only works under limited conditions and only works when all required conditions are met. Level 4 and Level 5 should ideally never ask the driver to take over. The difference is that Level 4 works even under certain limited conditions, while Level 5 means the car can drive itself in all conditions.

…if all conditions are met, the driver can take their eyes off the road and let go of the steering wheel without the car becoming annoying.

Mercedes-Benz’s version of Level 3, available through a suite of features called Drive Pilot, only works in clear weather, during the day, on certain highways in California and Nevada, and only when the car is traveling less than 40 miles per hour . After all, it’s only available in Merc’s EQS and S-Class sedans. That may not sound particularly exciting, but the difference from other similar systems is that when all conditions are met, the driver can take their eyes off the road and let go of the steering wheel without the car annoying. Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD systems require the driver to react and take over in all scenarios, meaning they officially fall into the Level 2 category.

Mercedes-Benz announced this system last September and began selling Level 3-capable cars in the US in December (the company had previously introduced the same system in Germany). Now, as Fortune noted, at least one of those cars was actually sold to a customer in California.

Mercedes is not alone in this endeavor, although it is the first company in the United States. Last year, BMW announced that it would launch a Level 3-capable car in March 2024, but only in Germany.

The tweet may have been deleted

Musk recently announced a “Robotaxi” event scheduled for August 2024. Although the Tesla CEO has not managed to perfect his FSD system to the point where it is fully autonomous, he continues to pursue the dream of robotaxis, i.e. cars that can carry passengers autonomously. They exist — for example, Alphabet’s Waymo and GM’s Cruise have offered a self-driving taxi service in San Francisco, with mixed results — but Musk seems to want to sell such cars to customers. To do this, he must first surpass Mercedes’ most recent attempt; In particular, Mercedes CTO Markus Schäfer believes that privately owned Level 4 cars could be an issue “by the end of the decade.”