Dutchy Ron schreef op 3 maart 2023 12:12:
With its latest strategy update Mercedes has defined a unique path that embraces the range of Google assets without a complete capitulation to GAS adoption. It is a first for the industry and will be watched closely if not widely adopted by many other auto makers.
The announcement is most ominous for Mercedes’ joint venture partnership with map-maker HERE. Not only was HERE not mentioned during the event, but Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian was on hand to introduce the range of Google Places assets that will be deployed in future Mercedes vehicles thanks to the new architecture and platform. (The Mercedes presenter expressed his excitement at Google’s “G” logo popping up in millions of Mercedes vehicles via a soon-to-be-launched software update.)
The import of this industry inflection point is hard to over-state. Mercedes joined Audi and BMW in a joint venture investment in HERE eight years ago. The highly unusual move was clearly intended to build a bulwark of automotive industry independence in the face of Google’s impending hegemony in mapping and navigation.
Clearly the hope was that HERE – and its duopolist rival TomTom – would continue to refine the in-dash navigation experience preserving a core in-vehicle value proposition intended to serve as the foundation of a safer driving vision ultimately encompassing automated driving. The Mercedes announcement appears to be tossing aside the value of this investment without acknowledging that Googlemaps is so-far ill-suited to the task of automated or semi-automated driving still prioritized by Mercedes in its Level II and Drive Pilot Level III solutions.
Mercedes not only failed to clarify the role of mapping in its autonomous driving plans, it also failed to clarify its autonomous driving philosophy. What is the Mercedes equivalent of General Motors’ Super Cruise? Does Mercedes believe in hands free or hands-on semi-autonomous driving? Will its “industry first” Level III Drive Pilot solution be the focal point – as Mercedes ramps up the system’s maximum velocity?
This, too, was something of a failure as Mercedes noted the regulatory approval of Drive Pilot in the U.S. in a single state: Nevada. Clearly Drive Pilot is an unleverage-able marketing asset. More importantly, though, the presentation failed to make clear how Drive Pilot or automated lane changing would fundamentally alter the nature of driving a Mercedes vehicle. As a further note, there was no bold claim that Mercedes would accept the responsibility for any driver mishaps occurring with these systems.
As for the embrace of Google, the presentation
marked a massive industry turning point as Google appeared to lower its restrictions and unbundle its service portfolio from the user experience for the first time specifically at the behest of Mercedes. This new-found flexibility is nothing less than an industry inflection point likely to unleash a flood of broader Google adoption in the industry that is likely to imminently threaten the core business of HERE and possibly TomTom as well. (TomTom has a notable lifeline in the Overture OSM initiative with Meta, Microsoft, and AWS.)
The implications of the Google inflection are important to the future of automated driving – dependent as it is today on the support of HERE and TomTom (outside China). If these two map suppliers lose their embedded automotive navigation business to a Google anschluss, they may not be able to support their autonomous driving initiatives. That, more than anything else, may become the legacy of the Mercedes Benz Operating System.