This statement makes no logical sense. Their systems are “capable of” what they can be used to achieve in actual operation.
It’s not like it’s this massively sophisticated system for FSD with most of the code commented out.
These are purpose-built and heavily tested to a specification - that’s how engineering works. The Mercedes system specification is extremely limited in practice, but gives them the marketing win of being able to claim they do L3.
Systems that are required to have ~100% performance within an operational design domain generally have more than 0% performance beyond that domain.
For example, Tesla FSD seems like a pretty good highway cruise control, but it can be dangerously deployed in city driving too. Of course this is a little difficult to argue about since AFAIK Tesla has never defined its ODD and their lead autopilot software guy said in his deposition that he didn’t even know what an ODD was?
I suppose one man’s “marketing win” to “claim” L3 is another man’s “actually deploying L3.”
I maintain that the Mercedes system is “capable of” what it can functionally be deployed to achieve by a user. That’s what “capable of” means. If Mercedes wants to try its hand at a universal L2 system, I wish them the best. This system is in truth not capable of L2 or L3 autonomous driving under almost all typical driving conditions. There is a small geofenced and speed constrained window under which the car will lane-keep and TACC without requiring hands-on-wheel. To me, that’s what we call a “gimmick”.
An autonomous system which cannot even change lanes should not - in my opinion - be classified as L3 Autonomy. Not only is it a gimmick, it’s basically a loophole in the spec.
As an aside, since you mentioned it, I think that describing FSD as “pretty good highway cruise control” is gaslighting.
Describing FSD as dangerously deployed in city driving is merely misinformed. In fact FSD (including the human driver and FSD’s comprehensive attention tracking and alerting) is safer than the average driver in city driving.
I’m not sure what you’re even trying to argue here. You disagree with SAE’s designations? Interesting trivia I guess.
Anyway I’m sure Tesla will say it’s Level 3 whenever it’s Level 3. Would’ve thought that was a while back when they marketed, sold, and rolled out “Full Self Driving” on public roads.
Tesla's system can be used to achieve nothing in actual operation. It makes constant mistakes and requires an ever-vigilant human to take over in a fraction of a second when it does. There is no advantage over manual driving, let alone manual driving with modern driver assistance.
We actually have no idea what Benz et al.’s systems are capable of if they were to deploy them with the same recklessness as Tesla.