You just don't know about the autonomous technology from Mercedes. Because they don't talk about. They don't produce blog post about every small step they do, like Waymo and the others.
The automotive industry is more like Apple. They don't talk and show off until its done. Like: Never over promise and under deliver.
You must be joking. This is the industry that has annual travelling car shows where every manufacturer displays "concepts" that are never thereafter produced.
In particular the automotive industry has been sued often enough to be careful what they say. I fully expect Tesla to be found at fault for some situation where they officially say the driver is in charge, but the courts decide marketing messages mislead the driver.
>Tesla probably has the lead on average but can't (or won't) guarantee that their system is safe in a specific set of best case conditions.
Do people not see how much of a nightmare it would be if liability is constantly switching back and forth depending on the circumstances the self-driving system is being used under? The only practical approach is to either have the driver always be responsibile when the system is on or the manufacturer always be responsible when the system is on. The choice to use the latter approach means the system has to be limited to very narrow circumstances. That doesn't mean the system is necessarily safer than the competitors in those circumstances, it simply means that the companies are approaching the same problem from differenct angles.
Tesla probably has the lead on average but can't (or won't) guarantee that their system is safe in a specific set of best case conditions.
It's a different approach if you ask me.