Tesla is still stuck at Level 3 while Waymo has been operating at level 4 for years.
If Tesla does manag to jump straight from level 3 to level 5, they have a chance to compete, but that seems unlikely. They also might move to level 4 and be able to expand level 4 coverage faster, but that still remains to be seen.
Waymo has years of experience with the other hard part of self driving taxis: actually picking up and dropping off people without a human driver.
Anti-musk partisanship frustrates me, but I suspect it is your fan-boy talking points that drive the downvotes of your comment
A fan-boy would never call Musk a narcisstic a*hole.
Technology progress is non-linear. Yes, Tesla is at L3 and Waymo at L4.
But, you completely missed the point of rate-of-innovation, which was why I made that as first point.
My GOOG holdings are 4x than TSLA. But in terms of who will deliver FSD at better margins, it's hands down TSLA. It's simple Math and Elon's obsession about cutting material costs & process to it's barest minimum. Waymo has no such discipline or culture.
What good is being able to produce cheaper vehicles at scale if they're not capable of providing the same service? Tesla has had years to catch up but still hasn't, and there is no proof that they can.
The main concern many observers (and I) have that is that Elon's insistence on not using LIDAR may mean that it's not possible to reach L4 with the current Tesla hardware stack, in which case TSLA can't even compete.
Any driver that makes this kind of move is typically in the top 5%ile of driving skills. Yes, it's an asshole and slightly illegal move, but the level of intelligence that needs to be applied for this move is all you need to know about Tesla's advantages.
I have been extremely critical of Musk's reliance on only cameras, but I'm impressed with the progress they have made because of the new architecture in 12.x series. Considering it'll be trained with 100x more compute, I'm willing to bet that Tesla will overtake Waymo's capabilities.
Yes, it's a speculation and you can disagree, but unless proven you can't tell it's wrong
> Yes, it's an asshole and slightly illegal move, but the level of intelligence that needs to be applied for this move is all you need to know about Tesla's advantages.
Every idiot can drive like an impatient asshole. Choosing not to do is is the true sign of intelligence. The car is literally driving itself at this point. What does getting there three minutes faster so you can doom scroll Instagram from the lobby instead of doing that while your car is driving itself do for you? Are you more important than everyone else and thus deserve not to wait your turn?
If it helps, Waymo's will run red lights, so it's not like Tesla's got a monopoly on being a bad driver.
The level of skills / intelligence required to make a smooth merge in these situations without impeding anyone requires superior skills and intelligence. Something people who don't make this move won't understand
I'd say these drivers are in the lower 5%ile because what usually happens is that they now block two lanes or almost crash trying to go into the corner together.
It was luck that the left lane was moving and that there was space. I don't want to see this kind of move from a driverless car.
It wasn't luck. There is always space between cars during stop-and-go traffic as cars take time to accelerate.
A skilled driver always makes the smooth transition into those gaps. I know most HNers are goody-rule-followers and can never appreciate the skill required to make that maneuver consistently. But, this is a clear example of separation of intelligence / skill and I'm happy with the bet that these are signals of intelligence
As long as it doesn't impede traffic, and make these kind of smooth merge, it isn't.
This is the difference between normies and first-principle-thinkers. They are being brainwashed into thinking all rules / laws are there to maximize total good for society
I don't know where you live, but here in Europe, the driver would lose the driving licence for 1 month for this little stunt. Specifically, changing lanes near the intersection over the solid line, and cutting those waiting in line.
What you call first-principle-thinkers, the rest of the world calls dicks. Everybody sees that manoeuvre, it doesn't require a genius. Most of the people don't do it because they are afraid of repercussions (if they get caught) or are civilised enough to realise that their time is not more important then the time of others. Yes, that manoeuvre doesn't "save you 5 minutes", it steals 1-2 seconds of everybody else's time.
That's why Musk's approach will win. Waymo will no doubt provide a safe, rule-following driving experience, but Tesla will have frontier breakthroughs and provide more human-like, adapting and sufficiently aggressive driving experience
The problem with Tesla's approach is that it learns from humans. Specifically, it learns the mediocrity of humans. That's why it made that idiotic manoeuvre, it learned it from the typical people that drive other Teslas.
So Tesla will necessarily converge to the performance of your average driver, because that's where the data leads it.
Waymo's is developing a new type of understanding and modelling of the world. It perceives and tracks items above the capability of humans to track and understand. Therefore its limits are outside of the bounds of the most capable human drivers.
Your own argument highlights exactly why Tesla's approach is a dead end (exactly in the same manners that LLMs will lead to the dead internet), while Waymo's approach will likely generate super-intelligence.
> you completely missed the point of rate-of-innovation
How is the "rate of innovation" higher but yet they've innovated less and have a less functional product? It's made up metric and was ignored because it adds no value to the conversation unless you have some actual data.
> Waymo has spent more money, resources and started earlier than Tesla and yet it is only marginally better than Tesla at this point.
Tesla isn't even comparable to Waymo at this point because Tesla has zero level 4 capability. Teslas don't even have the redundant sensors needed for level 4+. All Tesla has is empty promises and an u unclear path for ever getting past level 3.
If Tesla does manag to jump straight from level 3 to level 5, they have a chance to compete, but that seems unlikely. They also might move to level 4 and be able to expand level 4 coverage faster, but that still remains to be seen.
Waymo has years of experience with the other hard part of self driving taxis: actually picking up and dropping off people without a human driver.
Anti-musk partisanship frustrates me, but I suspect it is your fan-boy talking points that drive the downvotes of your comment