A Mercedes With Autonomous Driving Just Hit the US Market

Look Ma, no hands… or eyes.

Mercedes just became the first manufacturer to sell autonomous cars in the US that don’t require drivers to watch the road, Fortune reported.

Cruise Control, My Good Man

Plenty of carmakers have set their sights on finally realizing the sci-fi concept of drivers entering a location into a dashboard computer and then sitting back while the car does all the work. Tesla has Full-Self Driving mode, but drivers still need to keep their hands on the wheel and remain vigilant. Robotaxis like Waymo and Cruise are fully autonomous, but those are services for passengers, not drivers.

Along comes Mercedes’s Drive Pilot technology, which rolled out in Europe in 2022, which doesn’t require drivers to stay focused on the road. They can check emails, fix their makeup, or solve the day’s Wordle. But we’re not quite at the level of Knight Rider’s KITT just yet:

• Cars with Drive Pilot are only available for sale in California and Nevada, and even there it only works on certain freeways. Mercedes hasn’t approved the eyes-free autonomous mode for roads in other states, so forget about that cross-country trip without ever having to look out the front window just yet.  
• Plus, it needs to be daytime and the car has to be traveling less than 40 mph for Drive Pilot to work, making it more suitable for heavy traffic jams on “The 405,” as Southern Californians would say.

There’s also the cost. Drive Pilot is less of a feature and more of a service. Mercedes EQS sedan and S-Class owners can get the autopilot capabilities for a yearly payment of $2,500.

Levels to This Game: Drive Pilot is considered to have “level 3” autonomous capabilities, meaning the driver will still have to take over the controls at some point. Mercedes has said it’s working on level 4, which would offer near-total autonomy, and expects to bring it to market by 2030, Fortune reported. But because self-driving tech is still so new and drivers need to learn how to use it properly — Tesla has been at the center of hundreds of crashes — we won’t feel too bad if Mercedes extends its goalposts.