The California Department of Motor Vehicles announced Thursday that it has issued an autonomous vehicle deployment permit to Mercedes-Benz for its branded Drive Pilot formula. Safe situations without the active participation of a human driver. This means drivers can watch videos, text messages or communicate with a passenger (or even play around with a number of third-party apps aimed at new Mercedes models) without searching the road in front of them. them or have their hands on the wheel.
Mercedes-Benz is the fourth company to obtain a license to deploy self-driving cars in California and the first legal company to sell or lease cars with an automated driving formula to the public, according to the DMV, which regulates self-driving cars in the state. The deployment will allow Drive Pilot to be used on roads in the Bay Area, Central Valley, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego.
Drive Pilot is rarely very similar to the fully autonomous formulas developed through Waymo, Cruise, Motional and Zoox, although some of the same principles apply. The Drive Pilot formula uses a combination of sensors such as lidar, radar and camera along with software to manage driving responsibilities in certain situations without the active control of a human driver. The Mercedes formula is only available at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, during the day on selected roads. The formula will have no interaction on city or county roads, structure zones, heavy rain or fog, flooded roads and weather situations that we decided to formulate in accordance with compliance, according to the DMV.
Image credit: Abigail Bassett
Systems developed through Waymo and others are designed to operate at top speeds, day and night on public roads, and the human passenger never takes control.
The DMV imposed other situations on Mercedes, adding that vehicle owners will need to watch a mandatory video explaining the system’s functions and how to turn the generation on and off before they can access it. Mercedes will also have to meet a number of safety and insurance requirements. and vehicle registration requirements.
Mercedes has adopted a conservative technique for its Drive Pilot system, seeking approval from the U. S. state regulator. In the US, even in cases where there are no direct restrictions on the use of this technology. The automaker first launched Drive Pilot in Germany. It won approval from Nevada. previous this year.