Fair enough. I definitely agree that autonomous driving has to be insured by the company providing the service and at least in so far it's a big step in the right direction.
However claiming they have beaten Tesla seems like a bit of a stretch given the circumstances.
You just don't know about the autonomous technology from Mercedes. Because they don't talk about. They don't produce blog post about every small step they do, like Waymo and the others.
The automotive industry is more like Apple. They don't talk and show off until its done. Like: Never over promise and under deliver.
You must be joking. This is the industry that has annual travelling car shows where every manufacturer displays "concepts" that are never thereafter produced.
In particular the automotive industry has been sued often enough to be careful what they say. I fully expect Tesla to be found at fault for some situation where they officially say the driver is in charge, but the courts decide marketing messages mislead the driver.
>Tesla probably has the lead on average but can't (or won't) guarantee that their system is safe in a specific set of best case conditions.
Do people not see how much of a nightmare it would be if liability is constantly switching back and forth depending on the circumstances the self-driving system is being used under? The only practical approach is to either have the driver always be responsibile when the system is on or the manufacturer always be responsible when the system is on. The choice to use the latter approach means the system has to be limited to very narrow circumstances. That doesn't mean the system is necessarily safer than the competitors in those circumstances, it simply means that the companies are approaching the same problem from differenct angles.
They very much have beaten Tesla, or does Tesla have a similar approval and infrastructure in place? Will Tesla take liability from you when the car crashes in Autopilot? They won’t, while Mercedes actually will and has that legally backed by the German government.
As the top comment said, it's only in extremely tight circumstances. Tesla Autopilot / FSD beta (the one that you can use if you have >98 safety score) will work anywhere your car can see lane lines and it'll try its best to work in rain/snow or at 1am with limited visibility.
Regulators also love b) and now that there is precedence we should see the next step by some of the a) companies.
If their product is better they should be able to easily match or exceed Mercedes (and I think they will. Either voluntarily or by law).
To me this is a really exciting step along the way to autonomous vehicles.