Mercedes-Benz receives 1st Level 3 Autonomy approval for US market

San Francisco, Jan 30

Luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz has announced that it received the first Level 3 Autonomy approval for its "DRIVE PILOT" system, a first in the industry in the US.

The German car company also said that Nevada (a US state) is the first state to confirm the compliance of the system with state regulations.

DRIVE PILOT will allow the driver to hand over the dynamic driving task to the vehicle under certain conditions.

"Our DRIVE PILOT takes a major step forward in achieving that and places us at the very forefront of innovation in the crucially important field of automated driving," Markus Schafer, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, CTO, said in a statement.

"DRIVE PILOT demonstrates once more that our pioneering spirit is part of our DNA. Certification in Nevada marks the start of its international rollout and, with it, the dawning of a new era," he added.

Moreover, the company said, during the conditionally automated journey, DRIVE PILOT will allow the drivers to take their mind off the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities.

While DRIVE PILOT is active, applications that are normally blocked while driving can be enabled on the vehicle's central display.

Further, the German car maker mentioned that it has the ambition to continue to expand to California later this year with the certification documents already filed with state authorities.

Mercedes-Benz will offer DRIVE PILOT on S-Class as well as EQS sedan models for the model year 2024, with the first cars being delivered in the second half of 2023.