"You won't believe what's coming," warned the title of a January 2023 video from the Inside China Auto YouTube channel. "Europe's premium car makers aren't ready for this," warned another video from the same channel, uploaded in July. Produced by Shanghai-based automotive journalist Mark Rainford, a former communications executive for Mercedes-Benz, the channel is one of several by China-based Western commentators agog at what they are seeing--and driving. The channels tell salivating viewers that the tech-heavy yet keenly priced Chinese electric vehicles that have appeared on China's domestic market since the end of the global pandemic will soon wipe the floor with their Western counterparts. Auto executives in Europe, America, and Japan "didn't believe China's car companies could grow so fast," Rainford told me. "That's an easy mistake to make from outside the country.

German automobile maker Mercedes-Benz thinks it can put range anxiety to bed with its new concept car. Concept CLA Class, debuted at the International Motor Show in Munich this week, can drive 466 miles on a single charge – more than Tesla cars. Measuring more than 15 feet long, the low emissions four-door sedan also has panoramic windows, expansive glass roof and low energy lights. It's been made with'more sustainable' materials including biotechnology-based fabric, bamboo fibre and reduced emissions steel and aluminum. Unlike other prototypes from the company, Concept CLA Class is actually set to go into production, in late 2024 – but price is to be confirmed.

Mercedes-Benz vehicles are known for their quiet cabins, but things are going to get a little louder in them soon. The luxury automaker has announced that it is launching a software update that will bring ChatGPT into its vehicles through a collaboration with the Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service., starting on June 16. The feature will be integrated into the MBUX infotainment system, which already offers a wide array of voice commands through the "Hey, Mercedes" voice assistant feature. ChatGPT will allow occupants to have "conversations with natural dialogues and follow-up questions" with the generative artificial intelligence platform. A beta version of Mercedes-Benz's ChatGPT voice assistant is launching on June 16.

The California department of motor vehicles has approved Mercedes-Benz's automated driving system on designated highways under certain conditions without the active control of a driver. California is one of Tesla's largest markets, accounting for 16% of the carmaker's global deliveries last year, according to Reuters calculations. But the German carmaker beat Tesla to become the first carmaker to receive authorization to sell or lease cars with an automated driving system to the public in California. The approval was granted to Level 3 Mercedes-Benz "Drive Pilot" system that allows a driver to legally take their eyes off the wheel but must be available to resume control in need. The "Drive Pilot" system can only operate on highways during daylight at speeds not exceeding 40mph, the DMV said.

Mercedes-Benz is the first automaker to get permission from California regulators to sell or lease vehicles with Level 3 (hands-off and eyes-off) self driving tech on designated roads, Reuters has reported. The California Department of Motor Vehicles issued a permit for the company's Drive Pilot system, provided it's used under certain conditions and on specific roads. Mercedes-Benz previous received a similar certification in Nevada. Drive Pilot will allow Mercedes-Benz drivers to takes their eyes off the road and hands off the wheel, then do other non-driving activities like watching videos and texting. If the rules for use are followed, Mercedes (and not the driver) will be legally responsible for any accident that happens.

With Google's recent partnership with Mercedes-Benz, a "next-generation navigation experience" is not too far away. In this deal, Google Maps will provide geospatial data and navigation capabilities for the car manufacturer, while Mercedes-Benz will use Google Cloud's AI and machine learning capabilities to create, train and deploy AI models at speed. This will enhance customer experience, alongside building faster and more efficient data processing platforms to analyse fleet data. Additionally, it also plans to leverage Google's open infrastructure to secure and scale from on-prem to the edge to the cloud, across its technology ecosystem. Google chief Sundar Pichai said that the company will provide AI and data capabilities to accelerate their sustainability efforts, advance autonomous driving, and create an enhanced customer experience.

Mercedes-Benz is developing a new in-house operating system to power its next generation of electric vehicles. Announced today at an event the automaker held in California, Mercedes said MB.OS – short for Mercedes-Benz Operating System – will deliver enhancements in safety, automated driving and navigation. The automaker is working with several partners to build its new software stack, including NVIDIA, Luminar and Google. Mercedes will lean on NVIDIA for the company's software, data and AI expertise. The GPU maker's Orin chipset will also power the first generation of electric cars Mercedes builds based on its upcoming Mercedes Modular Architecture (MMA) platform.

German carmaker Mercedes-Benz has been certified for level 3 autonomous driving system in Nevada, marking a first for any automaker in the country. This essentially allows the manufacturer to produce cars in which drivers can legally take their eyes off the wheel and do secondary tasks, but still requires drivers to be prepared to take back control should the situation require their attention. However, earlier in March, Mercedes-Benz boldly claimed responsibility for crashes that would come after a driver engages the car's advanced driver assistance system. Once it's turned on, the driver is no longer legally liable, but Mercedes-Benz is. "By the end of last year (2021), we were the first [automaker] to get international certification for a Level 3 system," said Gregor Kugelmann, senior development manager at Drive Pilot, the automated driving system employed by Mercedes-Benz.

It wasn't long ago that everyone from Ford to Tesla was confidently promising fully autonomous self-driving cars by 2020. Well, 2020 has come and gone and Tesla hasn't been able to do its'coast-to-coast' driverless road trip and Ford hasn't sold a single self-driving car. This is no reflection on any of the many companies working on various self-driving technologies, but rather an indication of how difficult it is to replace the imperfect human behind the wheel with a machine. So instead of replacing the human, companies are turning their attention to assisting the driver with some laborious yet important driving functions. These systems, known as Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS), are divided into six levels according to the level of automation.

The Transform Technology Summits start October 13th with Low-Code/No Code: Enabling Enterprise Agility. Intel today announced a major update to its neuromorphic computing program, including a second-generation chip called Loihi 2 and Lava, an open-source framework for developing "neuro-inspired" applications. The company is now offering two Loihi 2-based neuromorphic systems -- Oheo Gulch and Kapoho Point -- through a cloud service to members of the Intel Neuromorphic Research Community (INRC) and Lava via GitHub for free. Along with Intel, researchers at IBM, HP, MIT, Purdue, and Stanford hope to leverage neuromorphic computing -- circuits that mimic the human nervous system's biology -- to develop supercomputers 1,000 times more powerful than any today. Custom-designed neuromorphic chips excel at constraint satisfaction problems, which require evaluating a large number of potential solutions to identify the one or few that satisfy specific constraints.