5 ms·

Yes, and we have to mind the denominator too. Waymo just announced 1 million self driving miles, Tesla just announced 150 million self driving miles.

lern_too_spel 4y ago
Waymo had 20 million self driving miles on public roads in 2021. Earlier this year, Waymo announced 1 million self driving miles on public roads with nobody in the driver's seat. Tesla has 0 such miles.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Thanks for clarifying! So Tesla has 7x the miles and so if their test program is riskier we should expect to see >7x the number of accidents.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    We see far more than 7x at fault accidents. As far as I know, Waymo has had none. Tesla has had so many that it had to post a recall notice.
  - bradtemp 4y ago
    No because when Tesla's system has a problem, as my car does a few times each trip, I grab the wheel. And waymo also has cars with safety drivers but also has run a million miles without one. Run Tesla FSD with no intervention for a million miles and it would have thousands of accidents. Thousands, where it was at fault. Waymo had 2 or 3 minor parking lot style no damage contacts in their million. Not thousands
ra7 4y ago
Waymo self driving is not at all the same as Tesla’s. One is fully driverless and the other requires driver monitoring.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  Yes, but Tesla does have a driver monitoring, so that's the relevant safety number. Nobody, even Tesla, is currently arguing that Tesla FSD is ready for driverless.
  - tasty_freeze 4y ago
    You just pointed out that the two driving assists are apples and oranges ... yet it was you who compared Waymo's driverless car total mileage vs Tesla's FSD.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      We are talking about safety and risk, not dick measuring the tech stack. Tesla has 150x the miles, which means that for the same risk level they should see 150x the problems. Maybe divide that by 3 to account for highway vs around town. I don't see 50x the number of "Tesla killed my dog" stories as "Waymo killed my dog" stories, so Tesla probably isn't taking egregious risks. What's your heuristic?
- simondotau 4y ago
  This is correct but misleading. Waymo and Tesla are pursuing strategies so different that attempting to compare them is futile. It's true that within the small geofences in which Waymo operates, their cars are dramatically less likely to come unstuck than a Tesla running FSD beta. On the other hand FSD beta drives on pretty much any public road and not a curated set of pre-driven, pre-mapped, pre-validated streets. Yes there are many geographies where it struggles; there's a cottage industry of people obsessively showing these on YouTube. There are also some areas of the country where FSD beta is utterly rock solid and people routinely drive substantial distances with zero interventions. It's also not entirely accurate to describe Waymo cars as "fully driverless" as they have a team of human employees remotely monitoring the fleet and can remotely operate any vehicle.
  - ra7 4y ago
    > It's also not entirely accurate to describe Waymo cars as "fully driverless" as they have a team of human employees remotely monitoring the fleet and can remotely operate any vehicle. This is absolutely not true. Waymo remote agents cannot operate a vehicle. All they can do is answer questions from the vehicle or plot a path to go around if it gets stuck. They cannot make any safety critical interventions. Waymo has talked about this many times. It’s fully driverless because the vehicle is responsible for attaining minimal risk condition all on its own. This is how other L4 companies like Cruise works too. Zoox has a good explanation on how their teleguidance works: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NKQHuutVx78 https://youtube.com/watch?v=NKQHuutVx78
tsimionescu 4y ago
Tesla has 0 self-driving miles, since a driver is always there and is fully responsible for any mistake that happens.
kaba0 4y ago
On motorways mostly, where the problem is almost trivial. If you add to it that it is much easier to accumulate miles there, Waymo’s number is much more impressive. It’s a bit like stress testing two frameworks, one tested only for a day, but at the frontpage of HN, while the other was up for a months, with barely any clicks.

lern_too_spel 4y ago

Waymo had 20 million self driving miles on public roads in 2021. Earlier this year, Waymo announced 1 million self driving miles on public roads with nobody in the driver's seat. Tesla has 0 such miles.

jjoonathan 4y ago
Thanks for clarifying! So Tesla has 7x the miles and so if their test program is riskier we should expect to see >7x the number of accidents.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  We see far more than 7x at fault accidents. As far as I know, Waymo has had none. Tesla has had so many that it had to post a recall notice.
- bradtemp 4y ago
  No because when Tesla's system has a problem, as my car does a few times each trip, I grab the wheel. And waymo also has cars with safety drivers but also has run a million miles without one. Run Tesla FSD with no intervention for a million miles and it would have thousands of accidents. Thousands, where it was at fault. Waymo had 2 or 3 minor parking lot style no damage contacts in their million. Not thousands

ra7 4y ago

Waymo self driving is not at all the same as Tesla’s. One is fully driverless and the other requires driver monitoring.

jjoonathan 4y ago
Yes, but Tesla does have a driver monitoring, so that's the relevant safety number. Nobody, even Tesla, is currently arguing that Tesla FSD is ready for driverless.
- tasty_freeze 4y ago
  You just pointed out that the two driving assists are apples and oranges ... yet it was you who compared Waymo's driverless car total mileage vs Tesla's FSD.
  - jjoonathan 4y ago
    We are talking about safety and risk, not dick measuring the tech stack. Tesla has 150x the miles, which means that for the same risk level they should see 150x the problems. Maybe divide that by 3 to account for highway vs around town. I don't see 50x the number of "Tesla killed my dog" stories as "Waymo killed my dog" stories, so Tesla probably isn't taking egregious risks. What's your heuristic?
simondotau 4y ago
This is correct but misleading. Waymo and Tesla are pursuing strategies so different that attempting to compare them is futile. It's true that within the small geofences in which Waymo operates, their cars are dramatically less likely to come unstuck than a Tesla running FSD beta. On the other hand FSD beta drives on pretty much any public road and not a curated set of pre-driven, pre-mapped, pre-validated streets. Yes there are many geographies where it struggles; there's a cottage industry of people obsessively showing these on YouTube. There are also some areas of the country where FSD beta is utterly rock solid and people routinely drive substantial distances with zero interventions. It's also not entirely accurate to describe Waymo cars as "fully driverless" as they have a team of human employees remotely monitoring the fleet and can remotely operate any vehicle.
- ra7 4y ago
  > It's also not entirely accurate to describe Waymo cars as "fully driverless" as they have a team of human employees remotely monitoring the fleet and can remotely operate any vehicle. This is absolutely not true. Waymo remote agents cannot operate a vehicle. All they can do is answer questions from the vehicle or plot a path to go around if it gets stuck. They cannot make any safety critical interventions. Waymo has talked about this many times. It’s fully driverless because the vehicle is responsible for attaining minimal risk condition all on its own. This is how other L4 companies like Cruise works too. Zoox has a good explanation on how their teleguidance works: https://youtube.com/watch?v=NKQHuutVx78 https://youtube.com/watch?v=NKQHuutVx78

tsimionescu 4y ago

Tesla has 0 self-driving miles, since a driver is always there and is fully responsible for any mistake that happens.

kaba0 4y ago

On motorways mostly, where the problem is almost trivial. If you add to it that it is much easier to accumulate miles there, Waymo’s number is much more impressive. It’s a bit like stress testing two frameworks, one tested only for a day, but at the frontpage of HN, while the other was up for a months, with barely any clicks.