Mercedes-Benz rang in CES 2026 on Monday with an up to date model of its driver help system as a result of arrive in new automobiles beginning this spring. Dubbed MB.Drive Help Professional, it’s an optionally available characteristic on the all-new CLA EV. Help Professional is a extra superior model of the corporate’s MB.Drive Help, which is already accessible in a number of autos and has been used to drive roughly 15 million miles (24 billion kilometers) worldwide.
Forward of CES, Mercedes introduced a CLA geared up with the Help Professional software program to San Francisco in December for a media day to check out its metropolis driving. Much like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, the Help Professional features on metropolis streets, not simply on highways just like the superior driving programs from Basic Motors, Ford, Rivian, and others.
On the media day, Mercedes highlighted the system’s “point-to-point” driving capabilities on highways and concrete roadways in addition to its cooperative steering. Although Help Professional is technically a Degree 2 driver-assist system, Mercedes refers to it as a “Degree 2++ system” or “Degree 2 optimized,” arguing that drivers utilizing Help Professional are clearly in management and extra alert than these utilizing different programs.
“It’s one of the best of two worlds,” Christoph von Hugo, head of energetic security at Mercedes, stated on the San Francisco occasion. Von Hugo added that drivers can provide Help Professional recommendations, akin to telling it to alter lanes, take a special flip than the one listed on the map, or drive farther from parked automobiles than the system suggests.
I used to be given an opportunity to strive Help Professional as a passenger throughout the San Francisco occasion with a Mercedes consultant within the driver’s seat. We used Help Professional throughout a 20-minute drive by way of San Francisco’s northern neighborhoods, which incorporates the dense North Seaside. Though the CLA adopted a mapped-out route, each motion it took was based mostly on impromptu decision-making whereas on the highway.
Total, the system appeared to carry out nicely throughout this quick demo. When the CLA encountered double-parked automobiles on a essential neighborhood thoroughfare, it simply maneuvered across the obstacles. In one other case, a supply driver jumped out into the road and the automotive respectfully waited for the human to get out of the best way. Most spectacular was a tough, diagonal intersection on the junction of North Seaside and Chinatown, which the CLA dealt with with out problem.
Nonetheless, Help Professional exhibited the identical persistent “issues” of machines driving in metropolis streets as seen in Teslas utilizing FSD and with Waymo’s Jaguar I-Paces. You recognize what I imply. There have been the awkwardly gradual four-way stops and different overly authorized driving behaviors. Nobody truly drives like that, however it’s finally safer driving.
Mercedes labored with Nvidia for all software program options on the brand new CLA, together with automated driving. Ali Kani, head of automotive merchandise at Nvidia, laid out the elements constructed into the system on prime of Nvidia’s Orin supercomputer, which incorporates 10 cameras and 5 radar sensors.
On the San Francisco media day, Kani known as the CLA an “AI-defined automobile.” He went on to exhibit how the automated driving system was educated on synthetically generated knowledge and neural reconstruction, which builds out totally different attainable eventualities based mostly on one actual situation.
“In self-driving, you can’t make a mistake,” Kani stated.
Gizmodo is on the bottom in Las Vegas all week bringing you the whole lot you’ll want to know in regards to the tech unveiled at CES 2026. You possibly can observe our CES stay weblog right here and discover all our protection right here.
