Mercedes-Benz will skip Level 3 autonomy and aim for Level 4 after 2030

Mercedes-Benz plans to bypass a second generation of Level 3 hands-free driving and move directly toward Level 4 autonomy, with the company's chief technology officer saying a production car at that level will not arrive until after 2030. The strategy marks a retreat from the position Mercedes held in 2023, when Drive Pilot became the first Level 3 system approved for use on US roads.

The newest S-Class reached the US market without Drive Pilot fitted, a signal of the change in direction as the automaker concentrates on more advanced driver assistance rather than incremental hands-off driving.

Why Drive Pilot fell short

Drive Pilot launched on the S-Class and EQS and allowed drivers to take their eyes off the road under defined conditions. Its usefulness was capped by an operating limit of roughly 40 mph, which confined the system to slow-moving traffic rather than ordinary highway cruising, and it worked only on certain roads and in certain conditions.

Jörg Burzer, Mercedes-Benz's chief technology officer, discussed the reversal at a media roundtable with Road & Track, describing the early Level 3 push as a lesson in timing. "Sometimes if you are too early, then you see that you have to work on what the customer really wants," he said.

That matters because a hands-off system that only switches on in a jam asks drivers to learn new habits for a narrow slice of their journey. Mercedes' own account suggests the capability arrived ahead of the use case, not behind it.

A more capable Level 2 takes priority

The company's immediate focus is MB.DRIVE Assist Pro, a point-to-point assistance system intended to handle more of the driving on highways and in urban environments. Mercedes says it can assist with lane changes, intersections, turns and traffic lights.

The updated S-Class reportedly carries as many as 27 sensors to support these functions. Drivers must still pay attention and stay ready to take over, which keeps the system at Level 2.

For buyers, that means the near-term gain is a system that works across more of a normal drive rather than one that briefly removes their hands on a restricted stretch of road. The trade-off is that eyes-off driving, the headline feature of Level 3, disappears from the plan for now.

Level 4 is the long-term target

Level 4 describes a vehicle that can complete all driving tasks within its defined operating conditions without a human supervising. Burzer expects that technology to reach a production Mercedes-Benz sometime after 2030, and says the rollout will likely be gradual once it does.

Mercedes has not announced which models will receive Level 4 first, nor which markets will get it at launch. Given the post-2030 timing and the gradual approach Burzer describes, the first cars to carry it are likely to be a narrow, expensive subset of the range rather than a broad option across the lineup.

What Mercedes has not said

The sources do not confirm pricing for MB.DRIVE Assist Pro, nor whether Drive Pilot will be withdrawn from existing markets or simply left to age out of new models. Mercedes has also not committed to a date for the first Level 4 car beyond the post-2030 estimate.

The direction is clear enough: Mercedes would rather sell drivers a system that helps on every trip than one that takes over on a few. Whether that bet looks right depends on how quickly Level 4 hardware arrives, and on whether rivals keep pushing eyes-off driving in the meantime.

General Motors has been granted a patent for a stability system that predicts when a car will pull off course and corrects it by changing the vehicle's ride height, camber and steering before the driver feels anything. The patent, US 12,780,181 B1, was published on November 3.

The filing targets what GM calls traction steer: the unwanted pull or turn that happens when the tyres on one side of a car have more grip than those on the other, most often under acceleration or braking. Rather than reacting after the car has already begun to move sideways, GM's system is designed to see the problem coming.

How the system is meant to spot trouble

The patent describes a car using a forward-facing camera to read the shape of the road ahead, then checking that against digital mapping data to judge how the surface could affect stability. An inertial measurement unit and a steering rack force sensor would be used to verify those predictions, with the system recalculating continuously in real time.

If the system decides the car is about to lose stability, it starts making corrections before a traction steer event occurs. GM's approach goes beyond steering and braking inputs: it actively shifts weight between the corners of the car to load up whichever tyres have the most grip. The patent gives the example of raising the left side of the vehicle to transfer load onto the right-side tyres, and raising the front suspension to push load toward the rear axle. Depending on conditions, each corner could be adjusted individually.

Camber and steer-by-wire do the rest

The camber element is the most unusual part of the filing. Camber is the angle at which a tyre leans when viewed from the front or rear, and most manufacturers specify some of it during an alignment because it helps traction in turns. Carscoops notes that no production car on sale today can change camber on the fly; a system that could would let a vehicle use camber for maximum grip whether turning or driving straight.

Steer-by-wire, meanwhile, has existed for decades but only reached a production vehicle on American roads with the Tesla Cybertruck. Its appeal here is a variable ratio, so that turning the wheel 30 degrees at 80 mph moves the physical wheels differently than it would at 15 mph. GM could use that to make small steering adjustments at the front or rear wheels to counter forces that would otherwise pull the car off course.

The hard part may be making all of this feel natural. A car that quietly lifts a corner and adds camber mid-corner is doing something drivers have never felt from a production vehicle, and the patent's promise depends on those corrections staying invisible rather than arriving as a lurch. Get it right and the payoff is broad: performance cars would gain grip in corners and on straights, while ordinary vehicles could see longer tyre life because tyres are no longer chewed up by fixed camber settings.

No production plan yet

GM has not named a model or confirmed any production plan for the technology. As Carscoops puts it, the system could end up on a shelf and never reach showrooms, or it could become the next big step in traction control. A granted patent protects an idea; it does not commit a manufacturer to building it, so the practical question for buyers is which GM platform, and which model year, would carry the hardware first. For now, that has not been announced.