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Mercedes-Benz DRIVE PILOT captures world’s first approval for hands-free driving

Während der hochautomatisierten Fahrt, ermöglicht DRIVE PILOT dem Fahrer sich vom Verkehrsgeschehen ab- und bestimmten Nebentätigkeiten zu zuwenden. Zum Beispiel mit den Kollegen via In-Car-Office zu kommunizieren, Mails zu schreiben, im Internet zu surfen oder entspannt einen Film anzuschauen. // During the conditionally automated journey, DRIVE PILOT enables the driver to move away from the traffic situation and to turn to certain secondary activities. For example, communicating with colleagues via in-car office, writing e-mails, surfing the Internet or watching a movie in a relaxed way.

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Mercedes-Benz DRIVE PILOT has captured the world’s first approval for ‘conditionally automated’ driving on German highways with its Level 3 system. The German automaker’s DRIVE PILOT is the first internationally valid system, as it met the requirements of Global Automotive Regulation No. 157, which concerns the approval of vehicles with regards to Automated Lane-Keeping Systems.

Mercedes-Benz announced the accomplishment, calling it proof of the company’s “pioneering work in automated driving.” The German Federal Motor Transport Authority granted the approval.

“For many years, we have been working to realize our vision of automated driving. With this LiDAR-based system, we have developed an innovative technology for our vehicles that offers customers a unique, luxurious driving experience and gives them what matters most: time. With the approval of the authorities, we have now achieved a breakthrough: We are the first manufacturer to put conditionally automated driving into series production in Germany,” Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, Chief Technology Officer responsible for Development and Purchasing Markus Schäfer said.

Die Bedienelemente für den DRIVE PILOT sitzen im Lenkradkranz oberhalb der Daumenmulden rechts und links. Aktiviert der Fahrer den DRIVE PILOT, regelt das System Geschwindigkeit und Abstand und führt das Fahrzeug souverän innerhalb der Spur. // The controls for DRIVE PILOT are located in the steering wheel rim above the thumb recesses on the right and left. If the driver activates DRIVE PILOT, the system regulates speed and distance and guides the vehicle confidently within the lane.

DRIVE PILOT will first be available in Mercedes-Benz S-Class models in the first half of 2022. There will be initial limitations with the functionality’s ability, and drivers will only be able to drive at speeds of up to 60 km/h or 37 MPH on German highways. This will effectively limit the Level 3 system to operating in “heavy traffic or congested situations on suitable stretches of highway in Germany.” Regularly flowing traffic patterns at speeds that exceed the approved limits will require a normal driving operation.

Levels of autonomous driving have been outlined by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). Level 3 Autonomy does not require humans to perform the act of driving. However, of the three levels that allow hands-free driving, which are Levels 3, 4, and 5, Level 3 is the only category in which the driver must take over if the vehicle requests human intervention. Level 3 is effectively described as a “traffic jam chauffeur,” which would align with the capabilities of the DRIVE PILOT system.

“During the conditionally automated journey, DRIVE PILOT allows the driver to take their mind off the traffic and focus on certain secondary activities, be it communicating with colleagues via In-Car Office, surfing the internet, or relaxing while watching a film. In DRIVE PILOT mode, applications can be enabled on the vehicle’s integrated central display that are otherwise blocked while driving,” the automaker wrote.

The system will initially be available on 8,197 miles or 13,191 kilometers of German highway. Mercedes-Benz said that it is working on completing extensive test drives in other markets, including the U.S. and China, so that it can launch DRIVE PILOT in countries outside of Germany.

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DRIVE PILOT in der S-Klasse: Hochautomatisiertes Fahren auf Deutschlands Autobahnen // DRIVE PILOT in the S-Class: Conditionally automated driving on German freeways

DRIVE PILOT uses a LiDAR-based system for operation, but it also has a camera in the rear window and a microphone, which will both be used to detect approaching emergency vehicles by recognizing flashing blue lights and sirens. There is also a moisture sensor in the wheel well, used for detecting slippery or wet driving conditions. A digital HD map will transmit information regarding road geometry, route profile, traffic signs, and unusual traffic events, including accidents or road work, to DRIVE PILOT, helping it make informed and logical decisions throughout the vehicle’s operation.

Mercedes-Benz also said that it has implemented a safety system that will inform the driver of when the vehicle needs to be back in the control of a human. If the driver fails to take back control of the car for any reason, including medical emergencies, the vehicle’s braking system will bring the car to a stop in a controlled manner while also activating hazard lights. Mercedes-Benz has an emergency call system, which will automatically contact first responders, and the vehicle’s doors and windows will unlock for easier access for first responders.

Mercedes-Benz has been working to get DRIVE PILOT approved by regulators since mid-2021.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Tesla and SpaceX merger talks hit a new stage, and one hurdle remains

Tesla and SpaceX merger talks are reportedly advancing, and a deal could arrive by December.

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Tesla and SpaceX are moving closer to a combination, with a deal announcement possible as soon as December, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The companies have also discussed a scenario in which the announcement slips into early 2027.

Boards and advisers on both sides are now working through the terms of the deal and the governance structure of the combined company, according to the report. One open item is how many SpaceX shares Tesla investors would receive. Bloomberg had previously reported that the two companies were aiming to announce a deal in the first half of next year and close it before the end of President Donald Trump’s term, so a December announcement would pull that schedule forward by months.

Tesla shares rose as much as 1.9% to $398.35 after the report, while SpaceX gained 0.6% to $140.63. SpaceX carries a market value of about $1.9 trillion following its June IPO, and Tesla is valued at about $1.55 trillion, which would make a combination the largest corporate deal on record. Neither company responded to requests for comment.

The talks became official on October 20, when Elon Musk said on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call that both companies had formed special committees of independent directors to study a merger, as Teslarati reported. Musk said he could not take part because he is “a conflicted party” and called the process “an odd kabuki dance.” He also noted that Tesla would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, a bar the company missed in 2025 when a board declassification proposal won support from only 39.4 percent.

China remains the biggest structural problem. Bloomberg’s sources said the companies still need to work out how to isolate Tesla’s large and profitable manufacturing business in China from SpaceX’s U.S. government and defense contracts. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta described those two factors last month as “key dynamics that are at odds with each other” for regulatory and shareholder approval. Musk has repeatedly said Tesla has no plans to separate its China business, a position he restated in August after ARK Invest predicted a merger announcement before the end of the year.

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Washington adds another layer. Democrats took control of Congress in this month’s midterms and have pledged to investigate Musk’s business and political activities, which could bring added scrutiny to a deal involving one of the Pentagon’s most important launch and satellite contractors.

The report also lands three weeks before Tesla’s December 3 annual meeting at Giga Texas. That ballot has only three items, led by the re-election of Musk, board chair Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, and includes no merger proposal. Any deal announced in December would likely require a separate special meeting for Tesla shareholders to vote on it.

The two companies already share a growing list of projects, including the Terafab semiconductor plant in Texas. Tesla’s next generation Roadster, which uses cold gas thrusters built on SpaceX hardware, turned up on display at SpaceX headquarters last month and has become one of the clearest public examples of that overlap.

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SpaceX hid behind another name in the Arizona desert, and now it’s going big

SpaceX puts a $50 billion price on its Arizona supercompute campus ahead of December’s hearing.

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SpaceX has put a price tag on the supercomputer campus it wants to build in the southern Arizona desert. In a statement Thursday, the company said it is pursuing a roughly $50 billion supercompute campus in Cochise County, about 80 miles east of Tucson. Together with a separate facility planned at Starbase, Texas, the two projects add up to more than $74 billion in planned investment.

The Arizona figure had not been disclosed before. SpaceX’s involvement only became public on November 4, when company representatives hosted a packed town hall at Cochise Elementary School for an application filed under the name Tombstone Resources LLC. A SpaceX representative told residents the filing used another name because putting SpaceX on it “draws attention” from outside the county, local station KVOA reported.

The application describes a 747-acre site near the Willcox Playa with up to nine buildings of about 493,000 square feet each. SpaceX plans to bring the campus online in four phases of roughly 1.5 GW, reaching 6 GW at full build, backed by a 24 GWh battery system and about $3.6 billion in grid upgrades. At that size, it would draw about 2.5 times more power than every data center in Maricopa County combined, according to an Arizona Republic analysis.

SpaceX says the project will create about 5,500 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, and that it could cut electricity bills for members of the local cooperatives by up to 20 percent. The campus would use dry cooling with no industrial groundwater use. Its application estimates ongoing water needs of 7 to 10 acre-feet a year, roughly what 20 to 30 homes consume.

Power is the bigger question. The site sits next to the Apache Generating Station, a coal and natural gas plant with about 1 GW of capacity that had been slated to retire by 2028. SpaceX told residents its investment could expand the station to more than 6 GW.

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Local opposition is organized. A petition asking the county to deny the permit has gathered about 2,400 signatures, and the nearby playa is a landing spot for federally protected sandhill cranes, which SpaceX says its design accounts for. The Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission will hold a public hearing on December 9 in Bisbee, with written comments due November 27. If approved, construction could start in March 2027.

The Texas project faces a vote the same day. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement for SpaceX’s $24 billion gas plant and supercompute facility at its own December 9 hearing, as Teslarati reported. SpaceX said Thursday the Starbase site has already generated more than 3,000 construction jobs, and it committed $220 million to Brownsville’s water and wastewater systems, $40 million of which has been paid.

Both campuses would expand a footprint still centered on the Memphis area, where SpaceX’s Colossus data centers run largely on gas turbines and the company won a permit for a power plant in Southaven, Mississippi earlier this year. SpaceX ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute. The Arizona campus alone, at full build, would be more than three times that size.

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Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer

Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.

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Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.

On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.

Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.


Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.

Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.

The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.

Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.

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