Mercedes-Benz has decided that its city assistant and its out-of-town assistant will no longer live apart. The company is tying MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO and MB.DRIVE ASSIST PLUS into one continuous system. According to the German outlet MBpassion, the moment you leave the city the car will hand the baton from the urban helper to the rural one — no pause, no gap in support halfway through the route.
MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO is all about the city. From the starting point to the address you punched in: the system reads the navigation route, holds the speed and the direction. But do not get carried away. This is still SAE Level 2, which means the human has to watch the road non-stop and be ready to step in at any second. The hardware is serious — Mercedes claims around 30 sensors, among them ten cameras, five radars and twelve ultrasonic units, with the data crunched by the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX computing platform.
Beyond the city limits the baton is said to pass to MB.DRIVE ASSIST PLUS. Eight cameras are enough for it, while the PRO version demands ten. And here is where it gets interesting: the necessary hardware, according to MBpassion, is already being fitted to some new Mercedes models, yet the software function will have to be unlocked by subscription — from spring 2027. Mercedes-Benz has not officially confirmed those dates or the payment terms. What is confirmed is the American price tag: in the US the system costs 3950 dollars for three years, and a monthly plan is on offer too.
The manufacturer itself confirms a broader timeline. The point-to-point urban function is due to launch in selected German cities before the end of 2026 — Stuttgart and Munich are named first — and to cover the entire country in early 2027. In China MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO has been available since late 2025, and the US launch is set for 2026.
Still, do not confuse the newcomer with the Level 3 DRIVE PILOT. With Level 3 active the driver may, under permitted conditions, take their eyes off the road and must resume control when the car demands it. MB.DRIVE ASSIST PRO, even as it changes lanes, turns and crosses intersections on its own, remains nothing more than an assistant. Legal and practical responsibility stays with the human. Always.
Earlier it was reported that Mercedes-Benz had revealed the new four-door G-Class Cabriolet.
