The point is Hotz's product shouldn't be compared to Waymo at all. One is driverless and the other is not. It should be compared to the likes of Tesla Autopilot or driver assist systems offered by other OEMs.
Unfortunately, many people treat Tesla auto-pilot and Waymo's Driver as though they were similar, when Waymo is probably 10x more capable, reliable, robust. I see this as similar to how people equate Alexa and Siri simple voice commands to Google Assistant's deep knowledge.
The contentious part is that Waymo doesn't have a product yet. It's easy to imagine something is better when you can't actually use it.
In truth there are only 3 self driving products that I know of available today. Tesla's Autopilot, GM's Supercruise (only on CT6), and commma.ai's openpilot.
Of those Autopilot is easily the best.
I never know why a source would matter in these cases as the writers of these sources usually have no idea and the answer isn't clear anyways. But if you want you can use me as a source because I'm an engineer who worked in automotive and has driven all 3 of aforementiond products. I also am not sure Waymo will ever release a feasible product other than their LIDAR.
It's pretty obvious that Waymo has done a million miles completely driverless with no major accidents, while Tesla has shipped a buggy and frequently updated piece of software to thousands of "beta testers" who demonstrate that it's unsafe on YouTube constantly.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the comparison between Tesla and Waymo seems absurd. Tesla doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to safety. Waymo has been moving very slowly and meticulously, and their tech is light-years ahead of Tesla.
The honest argument is that we have seen Tesla’s technology exposed to unsupervised and uncontrolled adversarial conditions across hundreds of wildly diverse cities in the USA, whereas we haven’t seen Waymo vehicles doing anything outside of curated geofenced areas or curated marketing videos. Right now if you dropped a Waymo and a Tesla on an unsealed road in Michigan, one of them will drive at least as well as a human learner driver and the other will probably refuse to drive.
I agree that Waymo could well be far ahead of Tesla, but there isn't enough information in the public domain to say this with confidence. We don't have the ability to make a proper comparative assessment.
Teslas philosophy is that self driving is useless if it can't handle every road and route out there, while Waymo who already has a ride hailing service, relies on pre-mapped routes and databases.
Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Waymo requires huge databases and a constant network connection. But it's good enough to be used in real-life without a backup driver, in certain select locations that is. If there's a road construction somewhere, don't expect the Waymo car to handle it unless they update their database.
Tesla on the other hand attempts to solve the problem with minimal database use, where most of the info coming from road markings and traffic signs. A much harder problem.
As far as actual real-life autonomous driving goes, Waymo is by FAR AND AWAY ahead of everyone else. Tesla's "self-driving" really isn't that good, relatively speaking.
> Tesla autopilot seems to be almost as good as Waymo
Tesla's system is better, if only because you can buy it right now. Waymo has sold exactly zero of their cars, and they don't even have a plan to do that any time soon.
Tesla autopilot is a joke compared to what Waymo intends to do. For Tesla, autopilot is just an add-on, a cherry on the cake that is a good-looking, hi-tech electric car. For Waymo, full self driving has been the one and only focus. On the surface, one is tempted to compare the two, but from an investment standpoint, I would not compare them directly. Tesla competes with car companies. Waymo competes with driverless car tech companies. Tesla also has some driverless car tech, but I would not invest in Tesla for that. Waymo is still likely the leader in driverless car tech, and that is a winner-takes-all market.
Waymo’s advantage is also that it is actually operating a robotaxi service, which isn't just making self-driving cars or having regulations in place, while Tesla is not.
I don't know anything about them to be honest! Just searched them up.
AFAIK, they aren't working on self-driving or trying to advance research there, so it doesn't make sense to compare them to Waymo either.
But an open-source driver-assist upgrade package is interesting, but doesn't overlap with my experience. Sorry I don't have anything more meaningful to say!
Tesla sells a driver assistance system comparable or a bit better than competing technologies from MobileEye or GM.
Their innovation is branding this ADAS as “self driving” and claiming they will eventually release a software update that makes it more like Waymo’s existing technology. They also have avoided safety features like eye tracking that prevent misuse of the ADAS as if it were a self driving system.
Waymo and Tesla really aren’t facing the same issue because the high-profile Tesla crashes are blamed by Tesla on the driver not properly overseeing the ADAS, while Waymo cars are on the road with no safety driver and have never had a major accident, and won’t be able to blame the non-existent driver if they do.
I’d argue Waymo is not a competitor and offers no ADAS. They operate autonomous vehicles in confined areas afaik. Driving in traffic, interacting with humans is a different story.
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