With the approval from the US federal state of California we can now take autonomous driving to a new level in the USA. Through our new research activities we aim to promote the topic specifically in the USA, as the traffic system in the USA differs from the system in Germany in numerous aspects. The knowledge that Mercedes-Benz gains will help to achieve significant strides in the further technological development of autonomous driving.

—Prof. Thomas Weber, member of the board of management of Daimler AG responsible for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development

The differences between conditions in the two countries are vast, Mercedes-Benz said. While motoring in Germany commonly takes place on narrow roads, the roads in the USA are frequently wider and may have more than six or even eight lanes. Traffic lights are installed on the opposite side of the road, there are numerous scenarios for merging onto roads and at a so-called 4-way stop the first to reach the junction is allowed to go first.

These are all situations which do not exist in this form in Germany. So we need to teach our research vehicles these situations here in the USA.

—Axel Gern, head of Autonomous Driving at Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Inc. (MBRDNA)

In future, these vehicles will be tested on the road almost every day. As in the test drives in Germany, these research vehicles from Mercedes-Benz in the USA are also current models belonging to the S- and E-Class.

The autonomous test drives are carried out by specially trained test drivers. The driver must recognize clearly when the car is in autonomous driving mode and must be able to override this mode at any time; in addition, the car must be capable of stopping autonomously at any time.

In Germany, we demonstrated in the Bertha-Benz drive back in August 2013 that autonomous driving is technically possible in complex urban and rural traffic. With the test drives in California we are now broadening the horizon for our research vehicles by additionally teaching them American traffic regulations.

—Thomas Weber