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Meanwhile, Tesla continues to iterate on a production fleet with a (admit idly rough) new capability rolled out to allow autopilot to obey stop lights and stop

Meanwhile, Tesla continues to iterate on a production fleet with a (admit idly rough) new capability rolled out to allow autopilot to obey stop lights and stop signs. If I were a investor that invested in individual stocks (which I am not), my money would be on Tesla over the long run here.

ehsankia 6y ago
Waymo did considering the iterative method and decided against it intentionally. Putting aside the obvious danger of incrementally getting to L4 (the inbetween state where the system feels safe enough for users to not pay attention, but actually isn't), it's actually not obvious that there is an obvious smooth transition from L2 to L4. Yes, Tesla may be getting more data in the field, but Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car without anyone at the wheel (within a small region + good weather). Also worth pointing out that the quality of the data also matters, not only the quantity.
- InTheArena 6y ago
  I think this was a strong argument when Tesla was the rough highway only version it was two years ago. Now it’s dramatically better and continuing to accelerate.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    Yet L4 is still nowhere in sight. What Tesla has now, Waymo had a demo for almost a decade ago. Either Waymo has been doing literally nothing for the past decade, or there's something more subtle and far more difficult about getting to L4.
    - InTheArena 6y ago
      Or just like a ton of other companies like Magic Leap, they went for a moonshot and are discovering that it would have been better to iterate instead. I suspect we will see a replay here of the ULA versus SpaceX history of the last ten years, and at the end, Google is going to look up and wonder "what happened" while Tesla continues to dominate the actual market.
      - reitzensteinm 6y ago
        It's interesting to me that you label Google's approach as a moonshot, because to me that better describes Tesla's approach. They're skipping the "crutch" of Lidar and geofencing and betting the farm on a software breakthrough. If it were anyone but Tesla, it would be a joke. My expectation is that Tesla gets better and better but doesn't move beyond a driver assistance package for a very long time. None of the hardware sold today ends up being FSD. Waymo remains limited in scope by its business model. It rolls out driverless taxis to more and more cities, but you can't buy a Waymo FSD car, and it remains geofenced for a decade or more. Which company wins the race to being able to buy a car without a steering wheel that will take you anywhere? I could see Tesla winning that. But Waymo is in a position to capture significant economic benefit by being an Uber competitor and providing logistics in the meantime, if they can scale up quickly enough. Regardless of how it goes, it's going to be fun to watch.
      - mikejb 6y ago
        > Or just like a ton of other companies like Magic Leap, they went for a moonshot and are discovering that it would have been better to iterate instead. Waymo started with the iterative approach, and threw it out of the window after they observed what Tesla is observing now: Humans suck at monitoring. Their testers started doing all kinds of crap while the car they were supposed to be supervising was driving, including texting, make-up and taking a nap. Waymo identified the risks, and had the luxury to take a step back, and re-aim the moonshot. Tesla made the same discovery, but can't (or at least didn't) go back and say "we need to re-evaluate our approach to FSD" - and instead keep trying to get people to stay attentive at the monotone task of monitoring the vehicle, while continue to keep the blame on the human when they crash and die. Now Waymo is in the position of being not only the current leader in self-driving tech (having cars without drivers on the road), but also having the perception of being the responsible player in the field, putting safety over profit&sales. Having the first cars without drivers on the road allows them to help inform legislation in that space, while Tesla is still struggling to convince their test drivers (=customers) to pay attention and not crash.
- pier25 6y ago
  > Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car without anyone at the wheel Source?
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    Look at the official reports on miles driven and disengagements.
  - polishTar 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqTnmn51Fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqTnmn51Fg
    - pier25 6y ago
      Thanks!
    - vxNsr 6y ago
      Again though, this is in ideal conditions and that video is of course hyper-produced advertising masquerading as news.
- autokad 6y ago
  > "Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car " Tesla is ahead where it counts, sales. it feels like waymo was already 'successful' in small regions with good weather not requiring complex thought situations in 2018. meanwhile tesla is improving designs, expanding capabilities, and selling cars. I'm not a tesla fan boy, but I definitely prefer their approach in terms of iteration (not sure if I agree with the tech choices).
  - magicalist 6y ago
    > Tesla is ahead where it counts, sales. Where it counts for what? Tesla has demonstrated it can sell non-autonomous cars, Waymo has not, but the GP's point is it's not clear what bearing that has on making an autonomous car work.
    - autokad 6y ago
      Because you have to sell them, and they actually have a product in the market. if you don't intuitively understand that, there is nothing more to say because you just don't understand it to make an informed thought on it. I'll give you a hint, the technology doesn't define the product.
      - ehsankia 6y ago
        > the technology doesn't define the product Product here is "L4 self-driving technology", not "car" as you seem to be implying. Yes, Tesla is shipping cars, but they are nowhere close to L4 self-driving (aka no one at the steering wheel). > they actually have a product in the market No they don't. They have a car on the market, and an L2 driving assistant. As I was implying above and again repeated by the post you replied to, there's no indication that you can transition from L2 to L4 in a gradual manner, so "L2 product in the market" means absolutely nothing. Here's an analogy for you, I'm saying that Google is ahead of Intel in making a Quantum chip, and you tell me that Intel is right now shipping millions of classical chips, therefore they are closer to making quantum chips. My argument is that the jump from L2 to L4 is similar to classical vs quantum chips, and shipping millions of L2 cars does not mean you're any closer to L4 technology.
013a 6y ago
More than one company can see tremendous success. This isn't a winner-takes-all scenario.
sidibe 6y ago
Obeying stop lights and stop signs is a very very long way from fully autonomous cars. "Deploying a production fleet" is a problem that car companies have solved for a century+ so if the finish line is "Deploying a production fleet of autonomous cars," the autonomous part is the hardest part of the equation, I don't see Tesla making it there first.
- mikejb 6y ago
  I agree. I think one key element Tesla is lacking (currently) is handling pedestrians. No Tesla driving demo I could see included any humans outside their cars.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    > one key element Tesla is lacking (currently) is handling pedestrians There is a lot more that Tesla is lacking before self-driving. I'm baffled that people here are suggesting otherwise?
    - arijun 6y ago
      What are some of the things?
      - shawabawa3 6y ago
        How about just summoning without needing line of sight and shifting the responsibility of crashing to the human
      - gvb 6y ago
        Recognizing semis that are crossing the road at an intersection. Recognizing traffic lane "darts" as a bifurcation of the current lane and not as a new lane to travel in. Recognizing stopped fire trucks and other vehicles partially or fully obstructing the lane the vehicle is traveling in.
      - dicknuckle 6y ago
        avoiding gradual road barrier encroachment into the travel lane. look up Tesla Jersey Wall on YouTube.
notatoad 6y ago
haven't waymo cars been able to obey stop lights and stop signs for years now? Personally, if i were invested in these companies my money would be on the ones developing autonomous car tech over the ones who aren't. Tesla and Waymo can both be leaders here.
- plexicle 6y ago
  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.
  - sgillen 6y ago
    Tesla is way ahead in gathering a large real world data set, which will be extremely useful down the line.
    - gizmondo 6y ago
      I've heard that a lot, and it never made any sense to me. What are they gathering exactly, video and radar feed? Nobody does end-to-end ML, so this data needs labeling. This is the costly part as it requires manual labour. And it doesn't scale with the deployment size at all. What am I missing?
      - randyrand 6y ago
        They do get labeling too. Their current beta requires user confirmation for every vehicle change in motion.
        gizmondo 6y ago
        You mean the label is a boolean "is this action reasonable"? That sounds worse than just recording all driver's input (which itself is useless afaik).
nojito 6y ago
The only reason Tesla releases new “features” is to recognize revenue and to stay afloat. Comparing the amazing capabilities of Waymo cars to the Tesla toy is very misleading.
- Infinitesimus 6y ago
  But tesla is the only one selling cars you can get today i guess. Waymo's ride share is still very very limited in availability and likely won't expand anytime soon
  - legolas2412 6y ago
    I never understand tesla fans. Every accident, i hear them talk about how autopilot is not driverless, as fully self driving does not imply driverless. As it is a driver assistance system that requires human oversight and control. On the other hand, there are constant claims of Tesla being the only one with driverless cars on the road.
    - sekai 6y ago
      Who is talking about accidents here? He was stating the fact that Tesla is the only car that has the best "autonomous" that you can buy, right now.
- mcot2 6y ago
  Not sure I agree here. The Tesla technology does quite well with a camera based sensor suite and a moderately priced custom silicon. It is rapidly getting better and they are logging an order of magnitude more miles than Waymo which is still using expensive LiDar and relying extensively on HD Maps. It’s way too early to know which approach will be the “winner”.
rsanek 6y ago
With the sky-high valuation we see in Tesla, the market already seems to be pricing in something along these lines. Unless you mean that Tesla, even at the current level, is still under-priced.
pests 6y ago
I ride in a M3 daily. If by "obey" you mean stop at every stop sign and light regardless of color and wait for a user interaction sure. Still no automatic turns either.
wefarrell 6y ago
If Tesla were serious about moving beyond level 3 they would have begun the process of getting regulatory approval in at least a single municipality.
Traster 6y ago
Meanwhile, Tesla continues to flout public health advice and put the public at risk. Let's not compare a real company with Typhoid Mary.
raz32dust 6y ago
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.
- tim333 6y ago
  Tesla autopilot is also a joke compared to what Musk says it's going to do. Whether he delivers is another matter.
- josecyc 6y ago
  Tesla has Full Self Driving as a clear objective and feature though, autopilot is just their way of releasing the useful features they acquire along the way to FSD. Tesla's difference in its approach (which I think most people tend to miss) is that it aims to be a robust general solution to L5, not a "hard coded", expensive, brittle, geofenced solution, which are basically what all the other L4 startups are aiming for. As famously Levandovski (the guy behind Waymo, Uber and Otto) and others have accepted that Lidar and HD maps are the wrong approach. https://medium.com/pronto-ai/pronto-means-ready-e885bc8ec9e9 https://medium.com/pronto-ai/pronto-means-ready-e885bc8ec9e9 It just is not a sufficiently general and economic solution to be scalable across time and space. It doesn't matter if Waymo's only focus has been FSD (which it completely hasn't) if they have a wrong approach they won't achieve it.
kgin 6y ago
Waymo is so much farther along than Autopilot

ehsankia 6y ago

Waymo did considering the iterative method and decided against it intentionally. Putting aside the obvious danger of incrementally getting to L4 (the inbetween state where the system feels safe enough for users to not pay attention, but actually isn't), it's actually not obvious that there is an obvious smooth transition from L2 to L4. Yes, Tesla may be getting more data in the field, but Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car without anyone at the wheel (within a small region + good weather). Also worth pointing out that the quality of the data also matters, not only the quantity.

InTheArena 6y ago
I think this was a strong argument when Tesla was the rough highway only version it was two years ago. Now it’s dramatically better and continuing to accelerate.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  Yet L4 is still nowhere in sight. What Tesla has now, Waymo had a demo for almost a decade ago. Either Waymo has been doing literally nothing for the past decade, or there's something more subtle and far more difficult about getting to L4.
  - InTheArena 6y ago
    Or just like a ton of other companies like Magic Leap, they went for a moonshot and are discovering that it would have been better to iterate instead. I suspect we will see a replay here of the ULA versus SpaceX history of the last ten years, and at the end, Google is going to look up and wonder "what happened" while Tesla continues to dominate the actual market.
    - reitzensteinm 6y ago
      It's interesting to me that you label Google's approach as a moonshot, because to me that better describes Tesla's approach. They're skipping the "crutch" of Lidar and geofencing and betting the farm on a software breakthrough. If it were anyone but Tesla, it would be a joke. My expectation is that Tesla gets better and better but doesn't move beyond a driver assistance package for a very long time. None of the hardware sold today ends up being FSD. Waymo remains limited in scope by its business model. It rolls out driverless taxis to more and more cities, but you can't buy a Waymo FSD car, and it remains geofenced for a decade or more. Which company wins the race to being able to buy a car without a steering wheel that will take you anywhere? I could see Tesla winning that. But Waymo is in a position to capture significant economic benefit by being an Uber competitor and providing logistics in the meantime, if they can scale up quickly enough. Regardless of how it goes, it's going to be fun to watch.
    - mikejb 6y ago
      > Or just like a ton of other companies like Magic Leap, they went for a moonshot and are discovering that it would have been better to iterate instead. Waymo started with the iterative approach, and threw it out of the window after they observed what Tesla is observing now: Humans suck at monitoring. Their testers started doing all kinds of crap while the car they were supposed to be supervising was driving, including texting, make-up and taking a nap. Waymo identified the risks, and had the luxury to take a step back, and re-aim the moonshot. Tesla made the same discovery, but can't (or at least didn't) go back and say "we need to re-evaluate our approach to FSD" - and instead keep trying to get people to stay attentive at the monotone task of monitoring the vehicle, while continue to keep the blame on the human when they crash and die. Now Waymo is in the position of being not only the current leader in self-driving tech (having cars without drivers on the road), but also having the perception of being the responsible player in the field, putting safety over profit&sales. Having the first cars without drivers on the road allows them to help inform legislation in that space, while Tesla is still struggling to convince their test drivers (=customers) to pay attention and not crash.
pier25 6y ago
> Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car without anyone at the wheel Source?
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Look at the official reports on miles driven and disengagements.
- polishTar 6y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqTnmn51Fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hqTnmn51Fg
  - pier25 6y ago
    Thanks!
  - vxNsr 6y ago
    Again though, this is in ideal conditions and that video is of course hyper-produced advertising masquerading as news.
autokad 6y ago
> "Waymo is still much further ahead with actual fully self-driving car " Tesla is ahead where it counts, sales. it feels like waymo was already 'successful' in small regions with good weather not requiring complex thought situations in 2018. meanwhile tesla is improving designs, expanding capabilities, and selling cars. I'm not a tesla fan boy, but I definitely prefer their approach in terms of iteration (not sure if I agree with the tech choices).
- magicalist 6y ago
  > Tesla is ahead where it counts, sales. Where it counts for what? Tesla has demonstrated it can sell non-autonomous cars, Waymo has not, but the GP's point is it's not clear what bearing that has on making an autonomous car work.
  - autokad 6y ago
    Because you have to sell them, and they actually have a product in the market. if you don't intuitively understand that, there is nothing more to say because you just don't understand it to make an informed thought on it. I'll give you a hint, the technology doesn't define the product.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      > the technology doesn't define the product Product here is "L4 self-driving technology", not "car" as you seem to be implying. Yes, Tesla is shipping cars, but they are nowhere close to L4 self-driving (aka no one at the steering wheel). > they actually have a product in the market No they don't. They have a car on the market, and an L2 driving assistant. As I was implying above and again repeated by the post you replied to, there's no indication that you can transition from L2 to L4 in a gradual manner, so "L2 product in the market" means absolutely nothing. Here's an analogy for you, I'm saying that Google is ahead of Intel in making a Quantum chip, and you tell me that Intel is right now shipping millions of classical chips, therefore they are closer to making quantum chips. My argument is that the jump from L2 to L4 is similar to classical vs quantum chips, and shipping millions of L2 cars does not mean you're any closer to L4 technology.

013a 6y ago

More than one company can see tremendous success. This isn't a winner-takes-all scenario.

sidibe 6y ago

Obeying stop lights and stop signs is a very very long way from fully autonomous cars. "Deploying a production fleet" is a problem that car companies have solved for a century+ so if the finish line is "Deploying a production fleet of autonomous cars," the autonomous part is the hardest part of the equation, I don't see Tesla making it there first.

mikejb 6y ago
I agree. I think one key element Tesla is lacking (currently) is handling pedestrians. No Tesla driving demo I could see included any humans outside their cars.
- MiroF 6y ago
  > one key element Tesla is lacking (currently) is handling pedestrians There is a lot more that Tesla is lacking before self-driving. I'm baffled that people here are suggesting otherwise?
  - arijun 6y ago
    What are some of the things?
    - shawabawa3 6y ago
      How about just summoning without needing line of sight and shifting the responsibility of crashing to the human
    - gvb 6y ago
      Recognizing semis that are crossing the road at an intersection. Recognizing traffic lane "darts" as a bifurcation of the current lane and not as a new lane to travel in. Recognizing stopped fire trucks and other vehicles partially or fully obstructing the lane the vehicle is traveling in.
    - dicknuckle 6y ago
      avoiding gradual road barrier encroachment into the travel lane. look up Tesla Jersey Wall on YouTube.

notatoad 6y ago

haven't waymo cars been able to obey stop lights and stop signs for years now? Personally, if i were invested in these companies my money would be on the ones developing autonomous car tech over the ones who aren't. Tesla and Waymo can both be leaders here.

plexicle 6y ago
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.
- sgillen 6y ago
  Tesla is way ahead in gathering a large real world data set, which will be extremely useful down the line.
  - gizmondo 6y ago
    I've heard that a lot, and it never made any sense to me. What are they gathering exactly, video and radar feed? Nobody does end-to-end ML, so this data needs labeling. This is the costly part as it requires manual labour. And it doesn't scale with the deployment size at all. What am I missing?
    - randyrand 6y ago
      They do get labeling too. Their current beta requires user confirmation for every vehicle change in motion.
      - gizmondo 6y ago
        You mean the label is a boolean "is this action reasonable"? That sounds worse than just recording all driver's input (which itself is useless afaik).

nojito 6y ago

The only reason Tesla releases new “features” is to recognize revenue and to stay afloat. Comparing the amazing capabilities of Waymo cars to the Tesla toy is very misleading.

Infinitesimus 6y ago
But tesla is the only one selling cars you can get today i guess. Waymo's ride share is still very very limited in availability and likely won't expand anytime soon
- legolas2412 6y ago
  I never understand tesla fans. Every accident, i hear them talk about how autopilot is not driverless, as fully self driving does not imply driverless. As it is a driver assistance system that requires human oversight and control. On the other hand, there are constant claims of Tesla being the only one with driverless cars on the road.
  - sekai 6y ago
    Who is talking about accidents here? He was stating the fact that Tesla is the only car that has the best "autonomous" that you can buy, right now.
mcot2 6y ago
Not sure I agree here. The Tesla technology does quite well with a camera based sensor suite and a moderately priced custom silicon. It is rapidly getting better and they are logging an order of magnitude more miles than Waymo which is still using expensive LiDar and relying extensively on HD Maps. It’s way too early to know which approach will be the “winner”.

rsanek 6y ago

With the sky-high valuation we see in Tesla, the market already seems to be pricing in something along these lines. Unless you mean that Tesla, even at the current level, is still under-priced.

pests 6y ago

I ride in a M3 daily. If by "obey" you mean stop at every stop sign and light regardless of color and wait for a user interaction sure. Still no automatic turns either.

wefarrell 6y ago

If Tesla were serious about moving beyond level 3 they would have begun the process of getting regulatory approval in at least a single municipality.

Traster 6y ago

Meanwhile, Tesla continues to flout public health advice and put the public at risk. Let's not compare a real company with Typhoid Mary.

raz32dust 6y ago

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.

tim333 6y ago
Tesla autopilot is also a joke compared to what Musk says it's going to do. Whether he delivers is another matter.
josecyc 6y ago
Tesla has Full Self Driving as a clear objective and feature though, autopilot is just their way of releasing the useful features they acquire along the way to FSD. Tesla's difference in its approach (which I think most people tend to miss) is that it aims to be a robust general solution to L5, not a "hard coded", expensive, brittle, geofenced solution, which are basically what all the other L4 startups are aiming for. As famously Levandovski (the guy behind Waymo, Uber and Otto) and others have accepted that Lidar and HD maps are the wrong approach. https://medium.com/pronto-ai/pronto-means-ready-e885bc8ec9e9 https://medium.com/pronto-ai/pronto-means-ready-e885bc8ec9e9 It just is not a sufficiently general and economic solution to be scalable across time and space. It doesn't matter if Waymo's only focus has been FSD (which it completely hasn't) if they have a wrong approach they won't achieve it.

kgin 6y ago

Waymo is so much farther along than Autopilot