Mercedes-Benz says L3 was premature, shifts focus to L2 and L4

On November 7, 2026, IT之家 reported on an interview that German automaker Mercedes-Benz would shift its autonomous driving strategy. In a media roundtable covered by Road & Track, Mercedes CTO Jörg Burzer said the carmaker had learned from an early push into Level 3 that being first to market does not guarantee a technology meets real customer needs. He explained that when Mercedes initially launched its Level 3 system, its practical usefulness was quite limited. As a result, Mercedes plans to prioritize a more full-featured Level 2 driver assistance system and later skip Level 3 altogether, moving straight to Level 4 autonomous driving.

The report also looked back at how Mercedes brought Level 3 to market. In 2023, it became the first automaker to receive approval for Level 3 autonomous driving in the United States with its Drive Pilot system, initially offered on the S-Class and EQS. Under specific conditions, drivers could take their eyes off the road. But those conditions were narrow: the system did not operate above 64km/h, so it mainly served congested traffic rather than normal highway driving, and it imposed strict requirements on road type and operating conditions.

The report described the move as somewhat unusual for a company that was among the first to offer Level 3 in the US, noting that the latest S-Class saloon shipped to that market without the technology as Mercedes redirected its focus toward more advanced driver assistance systems. For now, Mercedes’s revised timeline for Level 4 development has not been detailed in the available reporting.