GM has taken the incremental approach and has been selling the L2 Super Cruise feature for several years. So far it seems to have a good safety record. They plan to start selling an "Ultra Cruise" system next year with autonomous driving on a wider range of roads, but it will still be L2.

Mercedes-Benz had hands-free driving working on highways in 1987 (before Google even existed). However, their approach relied on expensive specialized hardware and wasn't commercially practical.

IIRC, Super Cruise hasn’t been around for long and is only available in certain GM vehicles. Their usage is certainly not at the level of Autopilot in terms of miles. I think when they hit that scale GM will also find out L2 systems are only as good as the driver’s attention span.

Yup and Super Cruise was essentially the same as Tesla's initial "Autopilot" but they didn't wanna deal with getting sued and being held liable for deaths. Something that Tesla, until recently, seems to have been immune from