Mercedes is introducing MB.Drive Assist Pro in Germany. The urban L2 system will first be available in Stuttgart and Munich.
Mercedes-Benz announced the introduction of the MB.Drive Assist Pro system in Germany. It is a SAE Level 2 driving assistant designed to operate the vehicle in cities as well as on highways. According to the manufacturer, Mercedes is the first brand to offer this feature in Germany, following earlier implementations in China and the U.S. Customers with compatible vehicles will receive a month of free testing.
From CES to German streets
The system made its debut at the beginning of 2026 at CES in Las Vegas, and soon after it hit the U.S. market. Now Mercedes is expanding the functions that have so far primarily worked on highways in Germany. MB.Drive Assist Pro is designed to support “door-to-door” driving: joining traffic, changing lanes, turning, braking, and starting moving from a stoplight. However, the driver remains responsible for monitoring the vehicle at all times and must be ready to take control. This is still Level 2, not autonomous driving, no matter how smoothly the system handles turns at intersections.
The first users will receive this feature by the end of 2026 as part of a pilot program in Stuttgart and Munich. Selected individuals will be notified separately and given an update for their vehicles. Mercedes says that the experiences gained from this phase will help further refine the system.
Other customers will be able to purchase the feature via an OTA update, provided their car has the necessary technical setup. Mercedes has not released a list of models. It also hasn’t disclosed the price in Germany. The U.S. can serve as a reference point, where a subscription costs $3,950 for three years (about 3,520 euros). Therefore, the free month in Germany appears to be an incentive before making a significant purchase decision.
R171 paves the way across the entire Union
The homologation in Germany was made possible by the new UN R171 regulation, developed by the UNECE working group focused on automated, autonomous, and connected vehicles. This regulation sets safety requirements for cars equipped with driver assistance systems. According to Mercedes, the same regulation will later allow the introduction of MB.Drive Assist Pro across the entire EU without separate approvals in each country. Theoretically, this also opens the way for Poland, but the manufacturer has not provided any timeline beyond a pilot program in two German cities.
The system uses 27 sensors on the hardware side: ten cameras, five radars, and twelve ultrasonic sensors. The data is processed by a computer with a processing power of up to 254 TOPS, meaning 254 trillion operations per second. The software combines the MB.OS operating system with the NVIDIA Hyperion platform, the Halos safety system, and Alpamayo software. There is no lidar in this setup.
The most important details are still unknown: how much the feature will cost in Europe, which models will have it, and when the pilot program will turn into regular sales. Only prices and drivers’ opinions from Stuttgart and Munich will show whether Mercedes has a real competitor to solutions from China and the U.S.
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