Mercedes wins the race with Tesla. They were the first to reach level three

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Tesla has a better PR when it comes to autonomous driving. After all, their cars are cited as an example of this type of solution. Now that may change. Mercedes was the first to achieve rank 3 in autonomous driving.

Mercedes is the first company to obtain full legal approval for a production car that allows true hands-free driving, allowing the driver to relax and watch a movie or work before arriving at the office. You will be able to experience it in the S-Class sedan from the beginning of 2022.

This will be more precisely experienced in Germany, where the Federal Motor Transport Authority has approved the Level 3 autonomous Drive Pilot system installed in a luxury sedan. But testing is ongoing in other countries, including China and the United States. As soon as the regulations allow, the system will be rolled out worldwide.

Drive Pilot was presented together with the debut of the new generation S-class. However, for legal reasons, no driver could officially use it. It is worth recalling that there are several levels of autonomous driving - from 0 to 5.

The Mercedes achieves the 3rd degree of Mercedes-Benz autonomous driving

0 means no autonomy, and 5 makes the car completely autonomous and requires no driver or steering equipment. Currently, most "autonomous" cars are at level 2, which means they will brake, adjust the speed, but the driver has to keep his hands on the steering wheel. Level 3 of the Mercedes allows you to control what is happening around the car, change lanes and avoid hazards on your own. he can do anything else, of course he still has to be behind the wheel to take the wheel just in case, but he can take his eyes off the road at this level.

However, there are also downsides to everything. So far, the system only works on German highways and at relatively low speeds. So it will work well in the morning rush hours.

Drive Pilot will operate on 13,191 km of German highways. Unlike Tesla's autonomous camera-only systems, Mercedes uses a combination of LiDAR, long-range radar, front and rear cameras and navigation data in the S-Class to read both the road and the traffic situation. It has a microphone for listening to emergency vehicles and even a moisture sensor in the wheel arch to monitor the road surface and detect low-grip situations.

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The system is also based on special GPS data. This creates a three-dimensional image of the surroundings that is stored both in the car and in the data center and is constantly updated.

As previously mentioned, the system will for now only be available in the S-Class from next year. However, over time, it will also come to the lower models. By the end of the decade, it will likely be available in regular cars, while Mercedes will undoubtedly be looking to break into autonomy level 4 for its flagship cars.