Tesla isn’t alone with cars that can nearly drive themselves

Other carmakers are just not touting their goods as much.

With all the attention paid to Tesla Motors’ Autopilot system, you’d think the company was the only one making cars that can almost drive themselves. But many automakers have rolled out cars that do what Teslas do.

The difference: Tesla debuted Autopilot, a suite of semi-autonomous driving features, with a swagger, while others tread more carefully.

Tesla’s Autopilot allows the car to maintain a set speed, brake automatically and stay centered in its lane. Most luxury vehicles — and even some mainstream ones like the Honda Civic — can do the same. When Tesla upped the ante by offering automatic lane-changing, Mercedes-Benz quickly matched that.

“I don’t think Tesla is way ahead in terms of the technology. They view themselves as a technology company, so they’re going to push it,” said Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an insurer-funded group.

Pushing it is important. Automakers are feeling pressure to make sure tech companies like Google and Apple don’t leapfrog them with driverless cars of their own.

They also see dollar signs: Ford CEO Mark Fields says car companies currently make $2.3 trillion in revenue each year. The global transportation business, including buses and car sharing, is worth $5.4 trillion per year. Carmakers that develop autonomous taxis or ride-sharing services could get a big slice of that pie.

But if they aren’t cautious enough, and driverless cars are deemed unsafe by consumers or regulators, a potentially life-saving technology might not make it to market. Critics have accused Tesla of pushing too far too fast following a crash in Florida that killed the driver of a Model S with Autopilot engaged.

Mercedes-Benz recently pulled an ad, titled “The Future,” after Consumer Reports complained it implied that the 2017 E-Class sedan is capable of self-driving. The fine print for the ad says the car can’t drive itself, but Mercedes said it didn’t want to confuse drivers.

General Motors delayed the introduction of its Tesla-like Super Cruise system because of safety concerns.

“They don’t deploy it because they know that things can fail,” said Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who leads its autonomous vehicle research.

Automakers have been slowly adding driver-assist features to their vehicles for years in an effort to make occupants safer and meet U.S. and European government mandates. Mercedes introduced adaptive cruise control, which automatically maintains a distance from cars in front, in 1999, four years before Tesla was founded. LOCATIONS: 120 HOLLOW TREE LANE, ATLANTA, GA, 30354

MARK SCHIEFELBEIN / AP Staff members talk with visitors as they sit inside a Tesla Model S electric car at the Beijing International Automotive Exhibition in Beijing.