They got an army of thousands of Indians to watch the road for you?
No, you’re thinking of Amazon.
They got an army of thousands of Amazonians to watch the road for you?
deleted by creator
Ah, the ol’ reddit swi- oh wait…
Ah, the ol’ Lemmy Switcheroo!
Time for snoo-snoo?
No they just got a few dozens good lawyers instead if the lawsuits costts less than the profits and you get publicity out of it then that’s business for ya
The best lawyers are going to use AI to create their legal arguments. And you know what AI stands for. Always Indians.
No matter how you slice it, it’s Indians all the way down.
This is the best comment I’ve read on Lemmy in the 6 months I’ve been here.
don’t come with a requirement that drivers watch the road
Seems it’s like every other Mercedes then
Hey I’m watching it on my mirrors.
And they managed to do it without us obsessing about their CEO several times a day? I refuse to believe that!
…
As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California, Fortune has learned through an open records request submitted to the state’s DMV. One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California, according to the DMV. Mercedes would not confirm sales numbers. Select Mercedes dealerships in Nevada are also offering the cars with the new technology, known as “level 3” autonomous driving.
…
Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on spec ific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven’t been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states.
…
U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500.
…
Mercedes is also working on developing level 4 capabilities. The automaker’s chief technology officer Markus Schäfer expects that level 4 autonomous technology will be available to consumers by 2030, Automotive News reported.
…
Hmm, so only on a very small number of predetermined routes, and at very slow speeds for those roads.
Still impressive, but not as impressive as the headline makes out.
And definitely not worth the $2500 a year they’re asking for the feature.
Chances are, If you can afford the car, then that amount is nothing to you.
Having known one, some of their customers love their feature loaded cars to brag about and feel extra special. Some will definitely pay the 2.5k gladly.
Conspicuous Consumption.
If they assume full liability for any collisions while the feature is active (and it looks like they do), then I can see that being fair.
Come on, you have been able to pay the price of that Mercedes in the first place.
These 2500 are not going to hurt.
Many people use credit to buy a car out of their league.
They may do so. I have no mercy for them.
I’ve seen this headline a few times and the details are laughably bad. The only reason this can be getting any press is because the headline is good clickbait. But 40 mph top speed on approved roads in 2 states only if a car is in front of you in the daytime is entirely useless. I guess it’s a good first step maybe? But trying to write headlines like this is big news is sad.
40 mph top speed on approved roads in 2 states only if a car is in front of you in the daytime is entirely useless.
It’s specifically designed to navigate traffic congestion, which happens under 30 mph. It can keep up with the lane, deal with lane changes, honk if someone backs into you, let ambulances through, things like that. Not sure why the article presents it as generic driving.
It’s starting in California where there are a meaningful number of high earners who are spending hours per day in 4 lane bumper to bumper traffic.
Having actual autonomy during those hours is still shit. But it’s a hell of a lot less shit than the tedium of the high attention requirements of sitting in traffic at a crawl.
Fucking subscription. No.
U.S. customers can buy a yearly subscription of Drive Pilot in 2024 EQS sedans and S-Class car models for $2,500
yeah, fuck that.
Those cars cost well over $100k each. The demographic buying that doesn’t care about $2500.
They’re also accepting full liability if anything happens while using this feature so it’s actually a type of insurance
I wonder how much cheaper it will make auto insurance. I also wonder if this will open transportation options those who have lost a license.
Not this. It’s limited to specific scenarios on specific roads. So you’re going to need a licensed driver.
Eventually with actually full self driving? I’d hope so, though it’s going to take legislation first.
I kinda like that system because eventually people will put their own OSes on the car, which the manufacturer obviously can’t cover. Having separate insurance/service eliminates having to pay for it if you’re accepting the liability yourself.
Ok, then I’ll do it if I don’t have to pay for other insurance on the car.
The conditions for the system to work are such that if you could find a policy to cover only those conditions, it’d probably just be like a couple dollars a month. Even behaving “badly” you would be unlikely to have an accident and even if you caused an accident, it’s probably just going to be a couple thousand in property damage with no medical implication.
Have you seen Tesla’s price for full self driving? And they don’t take liability
deleted by creator
I think you can afford that if you own an EQS
Paywalled.
Ty!
Paywalled.
On a different subject, why would someone downvote a one-word comment that accurately describes what the content is behind?
There are people who are pathologically contrarian. I’ve had to end a friendship over it—the endless need to say something negative about literally everything that ever happens and an unwillingness to be charitable to others.
Because some of us have fat fingers and accidentally downvote when we scroll on mobile.
One of the things I liked about reddit was that, since it saved downvoted posts, I could go through the list every once in a while and undownvote the accidents.
Can’t do that here though, and I sometimes notice posts or comments I’ve accidentally downvoted.
Anyway, people shouldn’t care so much, we don’t have a karma system or the like here anyways, so why does it matter?
Anyway, people shouldn’t care so much, we don’t have a karma system or the like here anyways, so why does it matter?
Well, only speaking for myself, I don’t care, it just seemed so weird since it was an accurate single word, so I was curious.
I also wonder sometimes if it’s a bot system purposely trying to force engagement.
Lol trust me, I get downvotes all the time for things I say here on Lemmy. If I let them bother me I’d be in the psychiatric system by now.
Reddit 1.3 is just like that.
Doesn’t answer my question though.
deleted by creator
Nope. Someone absolutely downvoted him. Because, just like Reddit, the downvote button here is the ‘wow fuck that guy for saying a thing i don’t like’ button.
Also a “I don’t like you/this page/the content and will go out of my way to systematically down vote everything you have done and everything in this particular thread” button.
I have the theory that archive.is, waybackmachine and 12ft.io are no secret anymore, and that just posting “paywalled” comes across as too lazy to copy/paste or (a lot easier) to use this addon to reduce the work to a click. i dont mind, but i can understand why others might see it that way
and that just posting “paywalled” comes across as too lazy to copy/paste
Blaming the victim, and justifying paywalls.
or (a lot easier) to use this addon to reduce the work to a click.
My phone browser doesn’t use add-ons.
i dont mind
And yet, you took the time out to reply, to chastise me for saying it.
sheesh, you are quite aggressive, i did not want to offend. and as i said, i don’t mind it, i even posted the archivelink, for which you thanked me. check your target before firing, mate :-)
(also, theres always firefox mobile. can apple users use it with addons/firefox browser engine now? i don’t follow apple development actively)
Love how companies can decide who has to supervise their car’s automated driving and not an actual safety authority. Absolutely nuts.
Assuming a functional legal system, they’d be liable for damages if they lie about product safety.
That’s gonna do the people murdered by an algorithm a lot of good… /s
You can’t have a babysitter following every human to make sure they don’t do something dangerous. Except for high risk areas, liability is the most practical option.
Or maybe, like, regulation?
So you want to read 50 page regulation about how to boil water in your home because boiling water can hurt people?
And how do you regulate AI when you have no idea how it works or what could go wrong. Not as if politicians are AI experts. Driving itself is already heavily regulated, the AI has to follow traffic rules just like anyone else, if that is what you are thinking.
Why do you believe that judges (or even juries made of lay people) can make sense of the very things that you’re so confident legislators or regulators cannot?
I’m not saying regulation is perfect, and as a result, certainly there is a role for judicial review. But come on, man…lots of non sequiturs and straw dogs in your argument.
Quite often, juries don’t have to rule on technical matters. Juries will have available internal communications of the company, testimonies of the engineers working on the project etc. If safety concerns were being ignored, you can usually find enough witnesses and documents proving so.
On the other hand, how do you even begin to regulate something that is only in the process of being invented? What would the regulation look like?
They actually did get certified by an authority
An “authority” of people who fell for some marketing bullshit.
Read the dammed article, it literally said the DMV for California and Nevada. It’s the fucking government.
Spoken like someone who clearly knows nothing about the technology.
Who said there was no safety authority involved? I thought it was part of the 4 level system the government decided on for assisted driving.
Musk: Fuuuuuuu
Wonder how this works with car insurance. Os there a future where the driver doesn’t need to be insured? Can the vehicle software still be “at fault” and how will the actuaries deal with assessing this new risk.
I believe Mercedes takes responsibility if there is an accident while driving autonomously.
Which is how it should be. The company creating the software takes on the liability of faults with said software.
No. I don’t think this is a good solution. Companies will put a price on your life and focus on monetary damage reduction. If you’re about to cause more property damage than your life is worth (to Mercedes) they’ll be incentivized to crash the car and kill you rather than crash into the expensive structure.
Your car should be you property, you should be liable for the damage it causes. The car should prioritise your life over monetary damage. If there is some software problem causing the cars to crash, you need to be able to sue Mercedes through a class action lawsuit to recover your losses.
You’ve been downvoted, but I don’t get why. Are people in denial that corpos will put money above all else?
Oh, there are a lot of Tesla/self driving cars fanboys out here. They’re caught up in the idea that these corporations will save us from traffic congestion/paying taxes for public transit/car accidents/climate change/car ownership/ you name it and self driving cars will solve it. They don’t tend to like it when you try to bring reality to their fantasy.
Self driving cars are a really cool technology. Electric cars as well. However, they don’t solve the fundamental problem of transporting a 200lb person using a 3000lb vehicle. So they’re at best a partial solution. I also don’t really want a future where corporations own more of our stuff and force into monthly payments for heated car seats and “prioritise human life” premium options.
Fanboys gonna fanboy I guess!
Berkshire Hathaway owns Geico the car insurance company. In one of his annual letters Buffett said that autonomous cars are going to be great for humanity and bad for insurance companies.
“If [self-driving cars] prove successful and reduce accidents dramatically, it will be very good for society and very bad for auto insurers.”
Actuaries are by definition bad at assessing new risk. But as data get collected they quickly adjust to it. There are a lot of cars so if driverless cars become even a few percent of cars on the road they will quickly be able to build good actuarial tables.
His statement is extremely flawed - insurance companies dream of accepting premiums and never paying out accidents.
He understands there is enough competition in the market that as payouts and accidents go down premiums will have to. There is enough competition they can’t just keep rates high they would be undercut and lose customers.
For BH it’s doubly bad as the large cash reserves GEICO has to maintain are used to borrow against at very low rates. If those reserves drop he has less to borrow against for investing.
deleted by creator
If I wanted to be cynical, it’s also that it’s a bit different when it’s not Average Joe asking for a payout, but Mercedes, for example. It may shift the legal playing field with the insured parties not being consumers, but car manufacturers. Even worse for insurers, car manufacturers would be more successful in negotiating the initial deal as well.
I would agree it’s bad for insurance company employees. But the purpose of an insurance company is to collect premiums and deny claims.
Get hurt in america, your insurer will hold a demo!
When you’re clients are a handful of companies who will more aggressively change insurers than consumers to save a penny and have their own legal teams, it becomes harder to price gouge or illegally deny claims.
Yes, clearly Warren Buffet is the one in the wrong here. 🤔
This is also the company that promises to prioritise the vehicle occupants over pedestrians.
I mean that’s exactly what the driver would do, I’m not sure why this is controversial
Yeah, for real, “Someone will 100%, do you want it to be your friends/family/people you know or some absolute random stranger?” Some lemmitors would surely answer “My people, for sure”
The human does it out of self preservation, but the car doesn’t need to feel too preserve itself.
By getting the in the car, the passengers should be aware of the risks and that if there is an accident, the car will protect pedestrians over the occupants. The pedestrians had no choice but the passengers have a choice of not getting in the vehicle.
I feel like car manufacturers are going to favour protecting the passengers as a safety feature, and then governments will eventually legislate it to go the other way after a series of high profile deaths of child pedestrians.
You’re probably over-estimating the likelyhood of a scenario where a self driving car needs to make a such decision. Also take into account that if a self driving car is a significantly better driver than a human then it’s by definition going to be much safer for pedestrians aswell even if it’s programmed to prioritize the passengers.
On the flip side, if you know a car will kill a passenger to save an outsider, it becomes very easy to “accidentally” murder a passenger and get away with it…
Nah, I think most people would crash into a tree rather than clear a sidewalk. Cars are designed to protect you in a crash. Pedestrians don’t have seatbelts, crash zones, and airbags.
I think you’re way over estimating driver reflexes and reaction capabilities. I don’t think most accidents give a good long time to consider the next step.
Who would buy a car that will sacrifice the passengers in the event of an unavoidable accident? If it’s significantly better driver than a human would be then it’s safer for pedestrians aswell.
Yes. As it should be. I’ll buy the car that chooses to mow down a sidewalk full of pregnant babies instead of mildly inconveniencing myself or my passengers. Why the hell would you even consider any other alternative?
pregnant babies
🤔
I’d consider a 5yr old a baby https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Medina
According to who? Did the NTSB clear this? Are they even allowed to clear this? If this thing fucks up and kills somebody, will the judge let the driver off the hook 'cuz the manufacturer told them everything’s cool?
According to who? Did the NTSB clear this?
Yes.
If this thing fucks up and kills somebody, will the judge let the driver off the hook 'cuz the manufacturer told them everything’s cool?
Yes, the judge will let the driver off the hook, because Mercedes told them it will assume the liability instead.
According to that teal light.
You do realize humans kill hundreds of other humans a day in cars, right? Is it possible that autonomous vehicles may actually be safer than a human driver?
Sure. But no system is 100% effective and all of their questions are legit and important to answer. If I got hit by one of these tomorrow I want to know the process for fault, compensation and pathway to improvement are all already done not something my accident is going to landmark.
But that being said, I was a licensing examiner for 2 years and quit because they kept making it easier to pass and I was forced to pass so many people who should not be on the road.
I think this idea is sound, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to address around it.
Honestly I’m sure there will be a lot of unfortunate mistakes until computers and self driving systems can be relied upon. However there needs to be an entry point for manufacturers and this is it. Technology will get better over time, it always has. Eventually self driving autos will be the norm.
That still doesn’t address all the issues surrounding it. I am unsure if you are just young and not aware how these things work or terribly naive. But companies will always cut corners to keep profits. Regulation forces a certain level of quality control (ideally). Just letting them do their thing because “it’ll eventually get better” is a gateway to absurd amounts of damage. Also, not all technology always gets better. Plenty just get abandoned.
But to circle back, if I get hit by a car tomorrow and all these thinga you think are unimportant are unanswered does that mean I might mot get legal justice or compensation? If there isn’t clearly codified law I might not, and you might be callous enough to say you don’t care about me. But what about you? What if you got hit by a unmonitored self driving car tomorrow and then told you’d have to go through a long, expensive court battle to determine fault because no one had done it it. So you’re in and out of a hospital recovering and draining all of your money on bills both legal and medical to eventually hopefully get compensated for something that wasn’t your fault.
That is why people here are asking these questions. Few people actually oppose progress. They just need to know that reasonable precautions are taken for predictable failures.
But then it’s good that the manufacturer states the driver isn’t obliged to watch the road. Because it shifts responsibility towards the manufacturer and thus - it’s a great incentive to make technology as safe as possible.
To be clear I never said that I didn’t care about an individual’s safety, you inferred that somehow from my post and quite frankly are quite disrespectful. I simply stated that autonomous vehicles are here to stay and that the technology will improve more with time.
The legal implications of self driving cars are still being determined and as this is literally one of the first approved technologies available. Tesla doesn’t count as it’s not a SAE level 3 autonomous driving vehicle. There are some references in the liability section of the wiki.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_self-driving_cars
Can’t the entry point just be that you have to pay attention while it’s driving for you until they figure it out?
You’re deciding to prioritize economic development over human safety.
*at 40mph on a clear straight road on a sunny day in a constant stream of traffic with no unexpected happenings, Ts&Cs apply.
Only on closed courses. The best AI lacks the basic heuristics of a child and you simply can’t account for all possible outcomes.
I like to imagine somebody in a call center remotely driving your car.
Fine print will say it’s still your fault though if they crash
On a lever 3 system it’s not. If it is then it’s level 2.
if it can drive a car why wouldn’t it be able to drive a truck?
I’m surprised companies don’t just build their own special highway for automated trucking and use people for last mile stuff.
We could make it work on a guide line and attach a bunch of trailers to one truck. You’re a genius.
This idea seems to be getting some steam. I’m all aboard it!
Some might even call that invention a train.
yeah that would be great. Say, you can save on that a little if you put wheel guides on the road since theyre all headed in the same direction, and maybe you can replace the tires with something that fits into that guide pretty well so that you don’t have to replace them as much. Matter of fact, all of these trucks can become electric if they run electricity through the track or above it. This is a revolutionary idea!!
It’s called a train, no?
On private roads in Canada, the mining giant Teck is starting to use autonomous transport trucks.
To me this is less frightening for public safety and more for reasons related to climate change, since this kind of industrial expansion will be less contingent on worker availability.
Mind you, the whole push toward driverless vehicles seems insanely redundant as a concept, since driverless tech in the form of high-speed rail has been around for decades in an infinitely more efficient way than could ever be offered by personal vehicles.
deleted by creator
On a slightly unrelated note, the Mercedes EQ class are really ugly, both internally and externally.
I think most German cars have had a bad generation.
Mercedes: recent designs have been divisive, sometimes I see one and think they look ok and other times they elicit a yikes. More importantly, Mercedes don’t have a single car in their lineup right now that outshines their rivals. Usually there’d be at least one. There is no reason to have a Mercedes right now.
BMW: does it even need to be said? BMW has designs and recognisability that others would kill to have, yet they destroy that design language and pump out absolutely hideous cars. This is not a Chris Bangle moment. People aren’t initially reeling at these designs but coming around to them and seeing them as being amazing and ahead of the curve like those of the late 90s and into the 2000s. BMWs are ugly now. I’ve even seen car reviewers such as Johnny Smith literally censor the grilles in their videos lol.
VW: the drivetrains are still completely fine, but my god the cabin quality has suffered. The penny-pinching is insane. Touch controls galore, with no backlight for night time driving? Two window controls and a touch toggle to switch between controlling the front/rear windows? Are you fucking serious, VW? VW used to be the king of affordable priced car with an interior that was closer to the likes of Audi/BMW/Mercedes/Volvo than it was to Renault/Citroen/Honda/Toyota/etc. but they’ve thrown that away to save pennies.
Audi: ok their general design still holds up well. But their interior is being cheapened just like VW’s. No doubt a decision from the top. Also the e-Tron’s camera mirrors are unbelievably shit. The Honda e (fuck you Honda for discontinueing, btw) had a much better implementation. And it was fucking dumb to sell the e-Tron GT for £2k less than its Porsche equivalent. Who would buy an Audi when for £2k more you can buy a Porsche?
Porsche: ok Porsche is still mostly excellent, but the first gen Taycan has a little more screen than I’d like. The 2nd generation Taycan is genuinely an engineering masterpiece, though. It feels like the car has finally had as much love poured into it as they do their 911s. People should watch Engineering Explained’s technical overview of it, it’s staggering how much they’ve improved it. But Porsche is somewhat niche anyway, they’re not enough to make the overall German car market look better.
The most frustrating one is VW. They’re supposed to be the mass-market, default, bread-and-butter European brand. And of all times to fuck up, doing it in a time when people are still forming their opinions on EVs is such a massive fuck up. People will look at the ID.3, then look at the likes of the MG4 or upcoming Renault 5 and think “oh, so VW can’t make good EVs”, and that will stick to them for a long time. Look at how long people thought Skoda was a crappy brand for! It was only around 2010 when “huhu crappy communist 80s car” meme truly died. Perceptions last and they’re choosing to trash theirs to recoup some money lost to dieselgate.
Rant over. I’m pretty fed up with the car market right now. I’m gonna keep my MX-5 until the rust claims it.
German brands right now are engaging in stupid “premium theatre”, by which they make their cars seem premium by using stuff like fancy headlights or doors that sound good, but are completely cheaping out on other stuff to an extent that’s gotten ridiculous. They’re being lazy and just resting on their built-up brand image. And that image will collapse if they don’t pull their finger out.
I’ve been watching a lot of car reviews lately and yeah, I think you’re right on all points. I watched a review of the new BMW 7 series and even the air control vents are capacitive sensors refer than little levers and it just seems unnecessary. What was hilarious was that the door release is right by the air vent control, so the review I watched saw the reviewer accidentally open the door when they were trying to control the air vent.
There’s way way way too much reliance on touch screens in cars. I’m not even sure if you’d legally be allowed to use them in some countries, I feel like you’d have to pull over to just change the HVAC settings! You’d swear it was designed by someone that’s never driven a car. They’re decisions that are probably coming right from the top and the actual interior designers are pulling their hair out.
There’s also a common theme across manufacturers where settings for features are lost when the car is switched off. So you have to go into the settings and change them back every single time you get into the car.
If I were in the market for a car (specifically electric), I’d probably go for Kia. The ev6 and ev9 look really nice. I’ve seen a couple of EV9s on the road recently and I was surprised at how much smaller they actually seem than on videos.
Like you though we’re going to keep our car (Nissan Quashqai) as long as possible. There’s no bullshit and it’s practical and comfortable.
Mazda has very nice interiors and didn’t go the touchscreen route.
If I were in the market for a car (specifically electric), I’d probably go for Kia. The ev6 and ev9 look really nice. I’ve seen a couple of EV9s on the road recently and I was surprised at how much smaller they actually seem than on videos.
Yeah the Koreans seem to have done well with EVs. It’s old now but the Kona was very well received with its EV variant. Someone a couple of doors down has an EV6 and loves it.
Personally I really love the design of the Hyundai Ioniq 5, it’s got that retro-futuristic vibe that I like and it’s based on the same drivetrain platform as the EV6 and EV9 (sidenote, that Hyundai-KIA EV platform is called E-GMP, and pronounced “E-gimp”, which I find hilarious)
Haha are you me?!
I’ve just got a Landrover Defender 2023 (75th) and was so glad is just had buttons for everything. I had a touch screen but other than navigation no need to touch it. Even optional analog dials instead of digital.
Was looking at the van equivalent of the new mercedes (v-class) but same ipad horror on the inside. Glad some brand are reversing this silly phase.
And was long time BMW driver before that but I quit 5 series before electric and the hideous grills. Such a shame.
It feels like the car has finally had as much love poured into it as they do their 911s. People should watch Engineering Explained’s technical overview of it, it’s staggering how much they’ve improved it.
But Porsche is somewhat niche anyway, they’re not enough to make the overall German car market look better.
I wouldn’t mind the dominant VAG-internal top-down trickle moving from Audi->VW to Porsche->VW.
Also for the record Porsches are about as common in Germany as Teslas. More common than Mazda or Mitsubishi. Granted, about 50% of those are Cayennes and Macans so that Bildungsbürger mums can drive Anne-Luisa to the farmer’s market.
Look at how long people thought Skoda was a crappy brand for!
Because it was, until the Czech moved from “VW but with less fuss, a proper Slav doesn’t need no fancy stuff but a workhorse” to “Eh the Wolfsburg guys are getting too crappy let’s get Bohemian”. It’s all VAG in the end but the brands do have their pride and independence.
Because it was
Yeah, until the mid 90s where VAG started throwing money at them, preparing for the takeover a few years later, not 2010-2015.
That’s my point, perceptions last a long time. Skodas were good long before the market caught on to that fact.
Lul, yeah. (And with a dash of subjective beauty standards + stuff like how the design is gonna & then actually does age - like I can tell which good looking new Alfa Romeo will age horribly as a design, and which not … or like when manufactures keep too many old-gen equipment/parts though new designs, like how Mercedes milked their models in the previous decade.)
And then there are some brands that produced like one good looking model, just to prove they could, but then immediately continue with only ugly ones & refuse to elaborate on the matter.
Most new Mercedes are. Especially from the rear. I can’t imagine what they were thinking when designing those.
