LOYAL AG said:
GarlandAg2012 said:
FSD is not the industry leader in self driving cars and the fact that so many people think they are is proof that their "Beta" program is a smart marketing idea but a bit of a boondoggle.
Waymo has a fleet of level 4 autonomous vehicles operating in multiple cities. FSD is level 2 or maybe 2.5. You have to have a hand on the wheel, and their switch away from LIDAR to a fully vision based system has made things much more difficult for them. If they can perfect it with cameras only, that would be a huge win, but as it stands today there are other companies doing far more advanced autonomous driving than Tesla. Even Mercedes has a L3 system, it just isn't available in all areas like Tesla.
https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/chip-design/autonomous-driving-levels.html
https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/full-autonomy-waymo-driver-2652903723
https://www.mbusa.com/en/owners/manuals/drive-pilot
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-2CB60804-9CEA-4F4B-8B04-09B991368DC5.html
You note Waymo isn't available in all areas and that's a huge difference. Waymo only works in areas that have been mapped for it. And I've read it can't handle changes like construction zones that aren't mapped out. Lastly it can't leave its geofenced area which is actually probably at least in part due to legal restrictions I noted above. That's a pretty limited application. Tesla can go anywhere and is learning how to handle anything just like you and I would.
Teslas change to camera driven and away from lidar was a temporary set back but a long term massive win. Can lidar read speed limit signs? Can it see temporary stop signs or red lights? Can it navigate barriers due to construction? I've seen FSD do all of that. Some examples of what FSD can do that Waymo can't.
I once had mine pull up to a construction zone with a barricade in my lane. The car stopped, looked at the barricade, then drove around it and kept going. (Short version the construction zone is one of those where certain times of day it's ok to drive and others it's not.) That same zone had a temporary stop sign and it saw that size and stopped. At night no less.
Yesterday I was driving south into CS and construction had stopped traffic and backed it up for a couple of miles. The car took the next turn off of 6 and drove a more or less parallel street for a few miles til it got past the blockage and navigated back to the highway. That's something we've all done but still it was pretty impressive to see the car decide it was the right thing to do.
There's a video on YT of FSD seeing a car stopped in the middle lane of a 3-lane highway, changing to the right and navigating the carnage as it unfolded in front of it. The driver said she feels like the system saved her life as the car between her and the stopped car plowed into the stopped car and she doubts she'd have had time to avoid it successfully because traffic was pretty heavy.
I'll read your articles on the other systems I just wanted to note that Waymo just isn't the same thing. Its limit to mapped out roads and reliance on the speed limits in its nav system are much different. It's Robotaxi which goes live in Austin this summer. Neither can drive you to Dallas or Houston but Waymo isn't even designed for that right now.
Good discussion. Tia for the links.
To those saying FSD doesn't require hands on the wheel, is it an actual system change that Tesla's website just hasn't been updated for, or is it something where there is a workaround or the check for hands on the wheel is periodic? Because Tesla's own website says your hands must be on the wheel. At a minimum, from a liability standpoint if the rules are that your hands must be in the wheel, and you get in an accident and they can prove your hands weren't, I bet they could point to their terms and say you weren't using the system properly. Screenshot from the model Y owners manual below.
The reason I posted about Mercedes and waymo is not to say that there are superior systems serving more customers. Tesla is clearly in the lead in terms of people using semi-autonomous systems in real life. That is a strategic move on their part and very in line with their higher risk/fast paced approach (and continuously unkempt promises of when features will go live).
My argument is that people were saying they have the best technology. They do not. The waymo system is much more capable. Lidar can't read Street signs, but waymos have cameras AND lidar so that is a moot point. To say Tesla is ahead in the tech development of autonomous driving (at least as far as we know/what is customer facing) and that the legacy automakers will be inevitably licensing their technology is an assertion I do not agree with. There are already better systems that the legacy automakers are invested in and helping to develop. Waymo has partnerships with Stellantis, jaguar Land Rover, Volvo, and Mercedes (for instance). You think they're gonna ditch that development with Google and end up licensing FSD from Tesla?? I will be very surprised if that happens.
Also, waymo is live in Austin already. Tesla unveiled their driverless taxi concept recently, and we all know it will not come out when they say it will. Waymo is already doing over a million miles per month of driverless taxi rides.
