Key backers BMW and Mercedes pull support for next level of self-driving tech, citing low uptake and use limitations
Level-three autonomy is on the ropes again – just as it looked like the dream of your car taking over the boring bits of driving was becoming a reality.
The two car makers that had finally put a ‘hands-off, eyes-off’ solution on the road, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, have both pulled support for the technology, returning it to limbo.
“We realised that the demand for this was not currently a stage where we could be profitable, and we have to be profitable,” BMW R&D chief Joachim Post said on the company’s annual results call in March.
Mercedes meanwhile won’t include its level-three tech on the updated S-Class.
Neither systems were comprehensive. A range of conditions had to be met, including the right type of road, the right weather, the right light levels, the right type of traffic and even the right country.
“The technology was very expensive and it had many limitations,” Pedro Pacheco, analyst at consultantcy Gartner, told Autocar. “On paper level-three autonomous driving sounds fantastic, but then you try it and it’s a disappointment.”
So that’s it, then? No catching flies on the M25? Well, not quite, because the car makers aren’t giving up. It’s not consumer push that’s driving them but fear.
“To be honest, today there is no demand from customers for level-three autonomous driving,” Philippe Brunet, R&D chief at the Renault Group, told journalists in March. “We have no one coming into the dealers saying: ‘You know what? I’m only going to buy this car only if you offer me level three.’”
The fear is emanating from China. Brunet recalled a recent test of the latest consumer-level autonomous system there: “It was very tough driving conditions, a lot of pedestrians, bicycles, people everywhere. But in the 45 minutes it was perfectly okay – no interventions.” He didn’t name the manufacturer but said this was in Hangzhou, home town of Renault partner Geely.
China doesn’t yet permit level-three autonomy, but what Brunet experienced, and where Chinese manufacturers are becoming increasingly strong, is so-called level two-plus-plus. That means car essentially drives itself everywhere, including cities, while the driver maintains vigilance to take over at any time.
“In China, if you don’t offer such features, you cannot sell a car,” Brunet said.
As Nio, Xpeng, Leapmotor, BYD and other Chinese car makers are going hell for leather to meet that demand, the systems keep getting better and better – and European car makers realise it’s only matter of time before Chinese cars with these abilities come here.
“They will bring it to Europe, and I believe that on the C-segment they will offer it for free,” Brunet said. “And when they will offer it for free, they will create the demand. This is what I’m afraid of.”
That’s why Renault is working on level-three technology without any push from the consumer, with 2028 as a target introduction date.
Canvassing car buyers isn’t much good anyway, believes Pacheco: “You can’t ask consumers about what they haven’t tried.”
The failure of Mercedes and BMW to create demand for a premium product that could be expected to trickle down hasn’t daunted them. Instead they’re doubling their efforts to provide the same level-two-plus-plus technology that Tesla offers with its Full Self Driving (FSD) Supervised system and the Chinese are busy perfecting.
“They’re very attractive systems for customers. They’re in high demand,” BMW’s Post said.
Pacheco agrees: “Level two-plus-plus is where the big party is. This is where Tesla is, this is where the Chinese are.”
Right now, the most advanced European systems are what’s described as level two-plus, meaning hands-on, eyes-off up to the speed limit but only on motorways.
Ford’s BlueCruise tech is a good example. The company recent expanded its offering to special editions of the Puma and Kuga, which get the system as standard rather the normal £17.99 monthly subscription.
Despite a lot of noise, getting any hands-off system approved in Europe is difficult. That’s changing after the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) endorsed a new set of standards for driver control assistance systems (DCAS), including allowing overtaking on dual carriageways without explicit driver confirmation.
That has given the Chinese hope that it can bring its systems over to Europe. Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng recently told investors that, following the DCAS regulation change, his company would bring its second-generation Visual Language Action (VLA) system over here by the end of the year.
The thorny issue of regulation remains, however. Tesla has been wrangling with Dutch authorities to give approval to its FSD Supervised system, from which it then hopes to quickly gain approval Europe-wide. Late in March, it said that it hoped 18 months of “intense” submissions would result in approval in April.
Tesla’s problem is that FSD is an end-to-end or ‘foundation’ AI machine-learning model, rather than a traditional rules-based system, so it makes decisions on the fly based on its learning.
“It means for every type of situation in existence in the regulation, they had to ask for an exemption and then prove that the system can perform well in that situation,” Pacheco explained.
Chinese makers like Xpeng also prefer end-to-end systems, but they have a different problem in that EU data protection law forbids training data from cars going back to China.
China enforces similar rules, so the high-tech driver assistance specialists have become very siloed. For example, BMW partners with Qualcomm in Europe but Momenta in China on its level-two-plus-plus system.
SAIC-owned MG acknowledges that it’s going to be harder to bring the sophisticated system that it offers in China to Europe.
“We are a little bit further behind on that in Europe,” European boss William Wang told Autocar. “If we work hard, we can catch up. We just needed to be more clever, take a long-term view and work hard.”
Chinese autonomy-focused software companies are setting up shop in Europe, including the favourite of the ‘legacy’ manufacturers, Momenta. Now they need to hoover up enough training data (essentially making computers watch driving videos) to train their software all over again for European driving.
Tesla is acknowledged to be the leader just in terms of data gathered, but questions still remain over the safety of the level-two-plus-plus systems.
BYD is under fire from owners in China that its God’s Eye system (now offered for free on all its cars there) suffers glitches, including missing highway exits and failing to stop for tollbooths, according to Bloomberg reporting.
In Europe, the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) flagged up “deep concerns” over changes to regulations by UNECE to allow level-two-plus-plus systems.
“These rules create a grey zone where the lines between assistance and automation are dangerously blurred,” Frank Mütze, automation specialist at the ETSC, said in a statement. “Asking a driver to monitor a complex machine for prolonged periods of time and then intervene in a split second when the system fails is a recipe for disaster.”
But European manufacturers are desperate not to be left behind in a race China has trained for years to win. AI learning has accelerated development in a way that couldn’t have been predicted five years ago.
“When AI technology comes, the world will change. In 10 years, half the cars in the street will be autonomous,” Wang predicted.
Level two-plus-plus is the gateway to level three, and when drivers are offered the ability to switch off while driving, car makers would be foolish to bet they will say no.
As ever with autonomous vehicles, the timelines are uncertain. But all it takes is a nod from the regulators and the flip of a switch. Car makers need to be ready.
