Tesla hasn't been ahead for quite some time. But I can own it and drive it around, unlike Waymo. That makes it better for me.
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Waymo
- Thread starter Daniel in SD
- Start date
jabloomf1230
Minister of Silly Walks
I think that you need to better define what you mean by "ahead" . If the realm is everywhere in NA, Tesla is far ahead. If the approach is based on limited geofenced areas, Tesla is behind, but may eventually catch up.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
I hope Waymo does copy and paste the Waymo Driver everywhere as soon as possible.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
We have this debate all the time. It really boils down to what you care about, ie what metric you use to define "ahead". If your metric is eyes off/driverless then being available in all of NA is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is whether the systme is eyes off/driverless. And Tesla would not be ahead despite having FSD in all of NA, since FSD is not eyes off/driverless. But if you care more about having a consumer car system that you can buy and use and it does not need to be eyes off/driverless, then yes, Tesla FSD would be ahead. I know a lot of Tesla fans want a system that handles as much of the driving for them and don't care if they need to supervise. For them, Tesla FSD is great. I think both positions are fair because both positions are legit ways to look at things.
What I find interesting about this is that in the FSD videos we see that small variations in individual junctions, weather, the behaviour of other vehicles, local variations in road markings and driving practice etc make significant differences in how well FSD behaves.
But for some reason we see one video of Waymo handling a given situation well and the default assumption is that they can do that just as well everywhere. Seems rather inconsistent.
But for some reason we see one video of Waymo handling a given situation well and the default assumption is that they can do that just as well everywhere. Seems rather inconsistent.
I live in a relatively rural part of the UK so Waymo’s service is about as relevant to me as a new casino opening on the moon.
I hope their service is successful as they’re targeting a specific need for robotaxis in high journey-density environments and if they nail it they will drive transportation forwards, but their approach of carefully controlled centralised testing and growing geofences doesn’t scale in a way that means their system is ever going to be a feature on normal, privately owned vehicles.
Tesla and Waymo are trying to solve two very different problems in two very different ways, they both just happen to involve cars that can move themselves around.
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Only posting this because I happened to see it yesterday and it amused me, but I think it illustrates how crazy complicated a generalised ‘drives everywhere’ system is. There are huge variations in how roads are used between regions.
FloridaJohn
Member
I think the general thought on "ahead," is "who has the most advanced self driving technology." This gives us a glimpse on what is possible. If the best Waymo could do was an L2 system with a continuous and vigilant safety driver that had trouble with unprotected lefts and four-way stops, and couldn't work in the rain, then we all could say that Tesla is in the hunt and the general field of autonomous driving is taking longer than expected.
But what we see is that other companies are quite far ahead of Tesla's capabilities, and although lots of people on this pro-Tesla board like to add caveats of various flavors to the Tesla solution, the fact of the matter is that Tesla is not leading the pack in this technology. And when we look at what the companies that are leading the pack are doing, it gives us an uncomfortable feeling that Tesla just might not be able to do it any time soon.
But what we see is that other companies are quite far ahead of Tesla's capabilities, and although lots of people on this pro-Tesla board like to add caveats of various flavors to the Tesla solution, the fact of the matter is that Tesla is not leading the pack in this technology. And when we look at what the companies that are leading the pack are doing, it gives us an uncomfortable feeling that Tesla just might not be able to do it any time soon.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Only if you disregard geofencing and obvious segmentation of the market.
It is very clear from last 5 years that geo-scaling is exceedingly difficult for traditional AV companies.
I think the jury is out on who is "ahead". I also think the question is moot - neither have shown the ability to be really at level 5 (i.e. can operate in all ODD).
I'd say Waymo is ahead in geofenced robotaxi market and Tesla is ahead in consumer market.
In that case I propose the Disneyland monorail is the best. As I understand it that’s been fully autonomous for years if not decades, with a proven track record. They’ve nailed it - all they need to do is roll it out worldwide and they’ve cracked autonomous transit.
An exaggeration to illustrate the point, obviously, but the point is that the horizontal scaling is in and of itself part of the challenge. Saying that Waymo are close to fully autonomous driving in the particular regions they’ve developed their system on is valid, but I think it’s underestimating the challenges presented by different geographies to say they’re further ahead than Tesla in the universal sense.
Tesla seem to have built a learning system that will be able to scale since they have automated a lot of the data capture, labelling and training processes and they have a fleet in the wild to capture test data and perform testing on a vast scale compared to Waymo. They’ve got a challenge in that they’re working with a less capable sensor suite and they don’t have a good ability to pivot on previous hardware design decisions because of the deployed fleet.
And to recap what I said above, this isn’t a criticism of Waymo. They don’t need to be able to drive every road on earth to make a success of their robotaxi business.
However I think there is more prospect that the first self driving car that I can sit in and drive from my house in the country to some other random location will have a Tesla badge on it than Waymo. The first robotaxi that I can get from Heathrow to central London? Probably Waymo.
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Scaling is a to similar areas is trivial in terms of technology. Waymo's problem is they can't figure out how to make most areas financially viable.
That has nothing to do with capabilities and technology. A Tesla in San Francisco, LA, Pheonix is not as capable as a Waymo in those same areas regardless of if you take geofencing and obvious segmentation of the market into consideration.
Scaling is considerable easier than the creating the technologies required to drive and do so at an order of magnitude safety levels compared to human drivers. Creating new technologies and testing is the hard part. It has taken Waymo over 10 years and 4 generations of hardware and countless software iterations to be able to safely drive in the rain without a safety personnel in the car. It has taken Tesla about 10 years, several iterations of software and 4 generations of compute platforms and they still can't remove a driver from the driver seat, that should tell you where the hard problem is.
No, we can clearly see who actually has autonomous vehicles driving around. We can't say the jury is out on who is ahead. Same way we can't say the Jury is out on who is ahead in landing rockets. SpaceX is clearly ahead even though BlueOrigin and a few smaller rocket companies can do it, even NASA did it in the early 90s.
That is a strawman. Having L5 is not a prerequisite to see who is ahead. Waymo set out to create a L4 vehicle not L5. L5 is a goal to strive for but would not be achieved in the next 20 years.
Waymo is making a L4 vehicle that drives by itself. Tesla does not have any such vehicles doing that anywhere on this planet. Tesla is one of the many car makers selling vehicles with L2 ADAS.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Not the way Waymo works. They are so afraid of their own shadow ...
I agree on financial angle. There clearly Tesla is far ahead of everyone else
A Tesla is neither L3, L4 nor L5, while Waymo is L4. That is the difference between Waymo and Tesla.
jabloomf1230
Minister of Silly Walks
It's the same situation with robotics. Boston Dynamics can build robotic dog and Bumblebee can build a robot that samples planet dust. But Tesla wants to build a mass produced robot that is affordable. It's the same logic they are using with AD. The basic problem is making a profit with a robotaxi. That problem is more difficult to solve than either technology or scaling.Not the way Waymo works. They are so afraid of their own shadow ...
I agree on financial angle. There clearly Tesla is far ahead of everyone else
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Time stamps:
0:00 Start of video
0:38 Unprotected right at stop sign
1:05 Yield to pedestrian
1:31 Right on red
1:55 Narrow-ish squeeze
2:17 Unprotected left at stop sign
3:09 Unprotected left at traffic light
4:25 Unprotected left at traffic light
4:40 Right lane change
6:52 Left fork at lane split
7:26 Yield to pedestrian
7:51 Proceed on yellow
9:10 Protected left
9:30 Proceed on yellow
9:59 Right lane change
12:48 Flashing red intersection
12:59 Shift into dedicated turn lane
13:27 Left lane change
14:48 Unprotected left at traffic light
21:15 Unprotected left at traffic light
22:00 Unprotected left at traffic light
22:11 Entering South Park Commons
22:53 Passing construction vehicles
23:15 Dropoff #1
24:08 Right on red
25:50 Unprotected left at traffic light
26:48 Left onto Embarcadero
27:04 Accelerating to 30mph
30:10 Right lane change
32:12 Pullover for dropoff #2
FloridaJohn
Member
If your goal is Full Self Driving, aka Autonomous Driving, then Waymo is ahead of Tesla.
Tesla does not have any vehicles that can operate autonomously, geofence or not. Waymo does.
Like I said earlier, caveat the hell out of Tesla’s capabilities as much as you want, but using the simple and obvious test of “can the car drive itself?” Waymo passes and Tesla fails.
Waymo may currently restrict itself by certain geographic areas, but Tesla currently restricts itself by not being autonomous.
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