Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz Group AG is the Stuttgart-based maker of Mercedes-Benz cars and vans. The brand dates from 1926, when the predecessor companies of Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler merged, and the group took its current name from Daimler AG on February 1, 2022, after spinning off Daimler Truck.¹ By its own count it sold 1,801,291 cars and 359,136 vans in 2025.² On MetaRoles it appears for two cases in which its machines take on part of a human job: driving, and moving parts on a factory floor.

The first is DRIVE PILOT, a conditionally automated (SAE Level 3) driving system. In December 2021 Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) granted it system approval under the UN-R157 regulation, which Mercedes-Benz said made it the first carmaker to meet that regulation’s requirements for a Level 3 system; it was offered at up to 60 km/h in heavy traffic, initially on 13,191 km of German motorway.³ In January 2023 Mercedes-Benz self-certified the system in Nevada, up to 40 mph,⁴ and on June 8, 2023 the California DMV issued it a deployment permit for designated highways in daylight at no more than 40 mph, excluding city streets, construction zones, heavy rain and fog; the DMV said Mercedes-Benz was the first company authorized to sell or lease vehicles with an automated driving system to the public there.⁵ While it is engaged, the person in the driver’s seat is a “fallback-ready user” who must take over when the system asks.⁶ After tests by TÜV Rheinland, the KBA extended the German approval to 95 km/h in December 2024.⁷⁸ In 2026 Mercedes-Benz told WardsAuto that the facelifted S-Class in the US gets a Level 2++ assistance system instead, while it develops a faster Level 3 system.⁹ MetaRoles uses DRIVE PILOT as its Level 3 example in SAE driving levels, explained.

The second is a humanoid robot pilot. In March 2024 Mercedes-Benz signed an agreement with Apptronik to pilot its Apollo robot, exploring the delivery of assembly kits to the production line, inspection of components and the delivery of totes of kitted parts; Apptronik called it the carmaker’s first application of humanoid robotics.¹⁰ A year later heise reported, from a Mercedes-Benz announcement, that fewer than ten Apollos had been working in a test environment at Berlin-Marienfelde and Kecskemét, Hungary, taught by experienced Mercedes-Benz workers through teleoperation and augmented reality.¹¹ Humanoid robots in warehouses and factories grades this case a prototype.