Mercedes-Benz has cause for celebration. Drive Pilot, which enables level 3 autonomous driving, has received official UN approval. This will allow Mercedes-Benz to put this system into practice worldwide when local legislation is ready.
Until now, the extent to which a car is allowed to drive autonomously has strongly depended on local legislation. Especially when it comes to level 3 autonomous driving, where the driver can let the car do all the work and only have to keep an eye on it. Mercedes-Benz already has a local exemption in Germany to start autonomous driving on public roads with level 3, as Tesla also has in the United States, for example. However, it is now also ready for global expansion.
The United Nations European Economic Commission (UNECE) has approved Mercedes-Benz. This does not only mean that Drive Pilot may be used in Europe, but also in countries worldwide that accept UNECE as an authority. This includes, for example, the United States and Canada. A condition is therefore that local legislation also permits level 3 autonomous driving.
In concrete terms, this means that from next year you can buy a Mercedes-Benz with Drive Pilot and thus be able to legally drive level 3 autonomously. The Mercedes-Benz S-class will be the first model to be publicly available with this system from 2022. There is still a catch: it initially only applies to Germany, where the legislation for this has already been completed. You can then completely hand over the steering wheel under certain conditions. According to German law, this is possible up to a maximum of 60 km/h, with heavy traffic on the highway. With the UN approval in its pocket, Mercedes-Benz is working on making Drive Pilot available in other countries as soon as possible. “Extensive test drives are already taking place, for example in the US and China. When there are national regulations for it in more markets, this technology will gradually become more widely available.”
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl