I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Waymo's approach to self driving is a fool's errand. The only reason it works is that they have mapped out cities with straightforward roads and sunny weather to millimeter precision, and have hardcoded vehicles to operate in those conditions.
Compare this to Tesla's AI-first approach, aggregating training data from millions of drivers across the US. There's no overhead to introducing Autopilot in a new city it's never been in before--it just "works," with no expensive 3D mapping required, by extrapolating cheaply acquired vision data from other cities.
Elon really got this right from the beginning, but Waymo's aggressive PR and marketing have pitted public opinion against Tesla, as is very clearly evident even in these HN comments.
Watch videos from Waymo customers in San Francisco. There are plenty of them online. See Waymo cars navigate San Francisco. See them cope successfully with traffic cones, bicycles, cable car tracks tracks, double-parked delivery trucks, small animals, construction, and wandering druggies.[1][2] Totally automatic. Nobody behind the wheel.
Then watch videos of Tesla self-driving in a city, with the latest "beta self driving". Two manual interventions in the first minute.[3]
Waymo has real self-driving. Tesla has fake self-driving.
I agree completely. I'd say something more like "Waymo really got this right from the beginning, but Uber, Tesla, and Cruise's behavior have poisoned opinions about self-driving"
Much the same way you have cherry-picked examples of Waymo doing well and FSD not doing well, I too can cherry-pick examples of FSD doing well and Waymo not doing well.
Tesla's definition of "crash" is "we count all crashes in which the incident alert indicated an airbag or other active restraint deployed."[1] Waymo's definition of "crash" includes minor fender-benders.
> The only reason it works is that they have mapped out cities with straightforward roads and sunny weather to millimeter precision, and have hardcoded vehicles to operate in those conditions.
Yet it actually works. Going to level 4 and slowly adding areas prioritizes safety and reduces the risk of project failure. You can argue the Waymo approach is slower, but is the only one that has worked so far.
> There's no overhead to introducing Autopilot in a new city it's never been in before--it just "works,"
Yet it doesn't. For all their grandstanding, Tesla has remained stuck at level 3 for years. I wouldn't say that trading cheap deployment for public safety is something we should praise.
I feel like I read this exact comment in 2018. And I am certain I'll read it again in 2028, even as Waymo is operating in dozens of cities and serving millions of trips per week. Because with the Tesla religion, the magical AI rapture is always just around the corner.
Yes, the Tesla approach is superior - if it could be made to work. Waymo is an inferior product that works today and is available. I'm sure the superior product will quickly recover and compensate for the first mover advantage of Waymo by way of sheer awesomeness. By then, we will all use Betamax cameras, minidiscs and the GNU/Hurd operating system.
This is full of misinformation, the kind Musk and Tesla fans have spread for years about their self driving competitors.
All of this is easily proven wrong. Waymo works in rain and fog in hilly San Francisco flawlessly. There are YouTube videos anyone can look up. One look at https://waymo.com/research/ tells you they're using more AI than everyone else combined. They've used an ML-based planner for years now. Saying they have "hardcoded" to drive at the scale of entire cities is just dumb. Somehow only Tesla fans think it's possible.
Tesla has no overhead introducing in a new city because, obviously, it's a driver assistance system. It "works" only because there's a driver ready to prevent crashes. That's not a fully autonomous system by any stretch of imagination.
Compare this to Tesla's AI-first approach, aggregating training data from millions of drivers across the US. There's no overhead to introducing Autopilot in a new city it's never been in before--it just "works," with no expensive 3D mapping required, by extrapolating cheaply acquired vision data from other cities.
Elon really got this right from the beginning, but Waymo's aggressive PR and marketing have pitted public opinion against Tesla, as is very clearly evident even in these HN comments.