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I don't get why Tesla keeps touting that they're going to have FSD taxis... in a few years. And their stock goes up when they (usually it's Musk, let's be clear

I don't get why Tesla keeps touting that they're going to have FSD taxis... in a few years. And their stock goes up when they (usually it's Musk, let's be clear) tout this. Waymo already has this (in limited areas). Why wouldn't Musk just partner with Waymo on this? Isn't this a situation where the more people using the tech will make it better faster than trying to have a dozen different companies chasing it essentially duplicating effort and training? Self driving seems like an area where it would be beneficial to share training data as much as possible.

Detrytus 2y ago
Musk's ego is just too big at this point for partnering with anyone on anything. He'd rather just "show them how it's done".
- yiyayo110 2y ago
  Using FSD every single day and it's amazing how well it works.
vinni2 2y ago
I guess fundamental difference is that Waymo uses a lot of sensors while Tesla FSD is relying on AI and computer vision.
- mupuff1234 2y ago
  More sensors doesn't mean waymo doesn't rely on AI and computer vision.
  - blerb795 2y ago
    This feels a little pedantic; I assume the commenter means that Tesla relies exclusively on vision, whereas Waymo additionally has sensors (i.e. lidar)
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    Parent should have said “on only AI and vision, no lidar.”
xnx 2y ago
Not sure Waymo has anything to gain from a partnership with Tesla.
- opinion-is-bad 2y ago
  At some point Waymo is going to want a lot of cars if things go well. Those cars need to be electric, due to the power draw of the computer and sensors. A partnership doesn’t necessarily make sense between these companies, but I can see possible synergies.
  - xnx 2y ago
    > At some point Waymo is going to want a lot of cars if things go well. Definitely. Waymo has partnered with Zeekr to produce purpose-built taxi vehicles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew32ydR2O3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew32ydR2O3c
  - cjsplat 2y ago
    Lots of surplus power in any ICE vehicle. 1 HP is over 700 watts. A few extra HP to generate power isn't any big deal.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      It's funny how poorly people understand the huge amount of energy it takes to move a car.
  - krisoft 2y ago
    > Those cars need to be electric, due to the power draw of the computer and sensors. They don't need to be electric. You can make electricity out of gasoline with an ICE engine. This is not a problem in reality.
  - zbrozek 2y ago
    The Google Prius, RX450h, and Pacifica were all hybrids. The power plant and autonomy system are nearly completely independent.
ilaksh 2y ago
I think within X decades, any viable car company will have self driving or have to license the technology. Companies would rather develop their own than license it for the same reason as they have their own anything. But I think that as AI continues to improve and more sensors are manufactured, the cost goes down and feasibility goes up for more companies to implement self-driving.
amacneil 2y ago
It's a bit like asking why Google doesn't just partner with Apple on phones since Apple is clearly better at it. The reason is that they are building competing products, with competing teams, competing software stacks, and different business models. Competition is good for innovation. Tesla prioritized building a highly generalized stack that can offer incremental improvements from L2+ on all roads (today) to L3/L4 some time in the future. Waymo is prioritizing building a tightly geofenced L4 system and gradually expanding the operating domain. Neither is more of a "correct" approach, since they have different design goals, and it's hard to even directly compare them at this stage of development.
modeless 2y ago
> And their stock goes up when they (usually it's Musk, let's be clear) tout this The stock is down 55% in the past three years. > Why wouldn't Musk just partner with Waymo on this? Because they sell cars worldwide, not just in San Francisco and Phoenix. Because Waymo's required sensor suite is far too expensive and maintenance heavy for a consumer-owned vehicle. Because what they have is already far better than any other car manufacturer's system. Because they have a huge head start in data collection over anyone else including Waymo. > Isn't this a situation where the more people using the tech will make it better faster than trying to have a dozen different companies chasing it essentially duplicating effort and training No, because many different companies are trying different approaches with incompatible hardware and it's not certain which approach will ultimately have the best tradeoffs in the real world. Centralization is not the way to produce innovation.
mdasen 2y ago
There are a bunch of reasons why Tesla doesn't partner with Waymo. The practical issue is t hat Waymo uses more advanced sensors than Tesla vehicles use. Partnering with Waymo would mean telling Tesla owners and Tesla shoppers "your vehicles won't be self-driving." If Tesla partners with Waymo, they're telling investors that their self-driving technology won't cut it. It's not just about ego. If Tesla is worth 10x more than GM or 100x more than Mazda because of a self-driving/AI/robo-taxi future, then partnering with Waymo is essentially saying "we'll provide the easily replaceable piece of the self-driving system." Let's say that this works by Waymo buying Tesla vehicles for its self-driving fleet. That leaves all the power in Waymo's hands. Maybe they ink an exclusive deal for a few years. When that deal is up, Waymo is going to be pitting Tesla/GM/Volkswagen/Toyota/etc. all against each other on price. Waymo has the thing they don't have. They all have mostly comparable substitutes. Let's say it works by Tesla licensing Waymo's technology and ditching their own AI plans. Again, it leaves the power in Waymo's hands. A few years out when the deal is set to be renewed, Waymo has a dozen car companies clamoring for its technology. Waymo knows it can seek a very high price, especially if Tesla wants to keep it exclusive. If Tesla doesn't want to keep it exclusive, then Tesla's valuation needs to be a lot lower like all the other car companies. And what's in this for Waymo? They could partner with any number of car companies. What is Tesla bringing to the table? A CEO likely to damage Waymo's reputation and blame them for anything that goes wrong? In terms of sharing things vs. not: you're kinda getting down to a fundamental inefficiency in our whole society. If all the car companies worked together on engines, we could get better engines faster. If all the drug companies worked together, we could accelerate research. But there are problems to that idea too. Having a single way of doing data collection can lead to blind spots, having a single hierarchy can mean that different things don't get tried, etc. There's also the issue of whose work gets deemed worthy of compensation. If you've ever worked at a large enough company, you'll have seen instances where people with entrenched ideas stymie progress. If everyone partnered on self-driving, who decides what sensors are going into the vehicles? Maybe I come up with a new sensor and SelfDrivingPartnership says "nah, we don't think it's worth the cost," and I can never test whether I'm right or not. In some ways, open source tries to solve some of this: everyone can still compete to make something better with the freedom to do so, but you can just take other people's code so you don't have to duplicate efforts. Of course, the problem there can be that companies don't want to share the pieces that are worth a lot of money. If self-driving tech is worth a trillion dollars, I might rather get that trillion dollars for myself and you can wait another 2, 5, 10, 20 years for it to be available.
c22 2y ago
Why would Waymo want to partner with Musk on this?

Detrytus 2y ago

Musk's ego is just too big at this point for partnering with anyone on anything. He'd rather just "show them how it's done".

yiyayo110 2y ago
Using FSD every single day and it's amazing how well it works.

vinni2 2y ago

I guess fundamental difference is that Waymo uses a lot of sensors while Tesla FSD is relying on AI and computer vision.

mupuff1234 2y ago
More sensors doesn't mean waymo doesn't rely on AI and computer vision.
- blerb795 2y ago
  This feels a little pedantic; I assume the commenter means that Tesla relies exclusively on vision, whereas Waymo additionally has sensors (i.e. lidar)
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  Parent should have said “on only AI and vision, no lidar.”

xnx 2y ago

Not sure Waymo has anything to gain from a partnership with Tesla.

opinion-is-bad 2y ago
At some point Waymo is going to want a lot of cars if things go well. Those cars need to be electric, due to the power draw of the computer and sensors. A partnership doesn’t necessarily make sense between these companies, but I can see possible synergies.
- xnx 2y ago
  > At some point Waymo is going to want a lot of cars if things go well. Definitely. Waymo has partnered with Zeekr to produce purpose-built taxi vehicles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew32ydR2O3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew32ydR2O3c
- cjsplat 2y ago
  Lots of surplus power in any ICE vehicle. 1 HP is over 700 watts. A few extra HP to generate power isn't any big deal.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    It's funny how poorly people understand the huge amount of energy it takes to move a car.
- krisoft 2y ago
  > Those cars need to be electric, due to the power draw of the computer and sensors. They don't need to be electric. You can make electricity out of gasoline with an ICE engine. This is not a problem in reality.
- zbrozek 2y ago
  The Google Prius, RX450h, and Pacifica were all hybrids. The power plant and autonomy system are nearly completely independent.

ilaksh 2y ago

I think within X decades, any viable car company will have self driving or have to license the technology. Companies would rather develop their own than license it for the same reason as they have their own anything. But I think that as AI continues to improve and more sensors are manufactured, the cost goes down and feasibility goes up for more companies to implement self-driving.

amacneil 2y ago

It's a bit like asking why Google doesn't just partner with Apple on phones since Apple is clearly better at it. The reason is that they are building competing products, with competing teams, competing software stacks, and different business models. Competition is good for innovation. Tesla prioritized building a highly generalized stack that can offer incremental improvements from L2+ on all roads (today) to L3/L4 some time in the future. Waymo is prioritizing building a tightly geofenced L4 system and gradually expanding the operating domain. Neither is more of a "correct" approach, since they have different design goals, and it's hard to even directly compare them at this stage of development.

modeless 2y ago

> And their stock goes up when they (usually it's Musk, let's be clear) tout this The stock is down 55% in the past three years. > Why wouldn't Musk just partner with Waymo on this? Because they sell cars worldwide, not just in San Francisco and Phoenix. Because Waymo's required sensor suite is far too expensive and maintenance heavy for a consumer-owned vehicle. Because what they have is already far better than any other car manufacturer's system. Because they have a huge head start in data collection over anyone else including Waymo. > Isn't this a situation where the more people using the tech will make it better faster than trying to have a dozen different companies chasing it essentially duplicating effort and training No, because many different companies are trying different approaches with incompatible hardware and it's not certain which approach will ultimately have the best tradeoffs in the real world. Centralization is not the way to produce innovation.

mdasen 2y ago

There are a bunch of reasons why Tesla doesn't partner with Waymo. The practical issue is t hat Waymo uses more advanced sensors than Tesla vehicles use. Partnering with Waymo would mean telling Tesla owners and Tesla shoppers "your vehicles won't be self-driving." If Tesla partners with Waymo, they're telling investors that their self-driving technology won't cut it. It's not just about ego. If Tesla is worth 10x more than GM or 100x more than Mazda because of a self-driving/AI/robo-taxi future, then partnering with Waymo is essentially saying "we'll provide the easily replaceable piece of the self-driving system." Let's say that this works by Waymo buying Tesla vehicles for its self-driving fleet. That leaves all the power in Waymo's hands. Maybe they ink an exclusive deal for a few years. When that deal is up, Waymo is going to be pitting Tesla/GM/Volkswagen/Toyota/etc. all against each other on price. Waymo has the thing they don't have. They all have mostly comparable substitutes. Let's say it works by Tesla licensing Waymo's technology and ditching their own AI plans. Again, it leaves the power in Waymo's hands. A few years out when the deal is set to be renewed, Waymo has a dozen car companies clamoring for its technology. Waymo knows it can seek a very high price, especially if Tesla wants to keep it exclusive. If Tesla doesn't want to keep it exclusive, then Tesla's valuation needs to be a lot lower like all the other car companies. And what's in this for Waymo? They could partner with any number of car companies. What is Tesla bringing to the table? A CEO likely to damage Waymo's reputation and blame them for anything that goes wrong? In terms of sharing things vs. not: you're kinda getting down to a fundamental inefficiency in our whole society. If all the car companies worked together on engines, we could get better engines faster. If all the drug companies worked together, we could accelerate research. But there are problems to that idea too. Having a single way of doing data collection can lead to blind spots, having a single hierarchy can mean that different things don't get tried, etc. There's also the issue of whose work gets deemed worthy of compensation. If you've ever worked at a large enough company, you'll have seen instances where people with entrenched ideas stymie progress. If everyone partnered on self-driving, who decides what sensors are going into the vehicles? Maybe I come up with a new sensor and SelfDrivingPartnership says "nah, we don't think it's worth the cost," and I can never test whether I'm right or not. In some ways, open source tries to solve some of this: everyone can still compete to make something better with the freedom to do so, but you can just take other people's code so you don't have to duplicate efforts. Of course, the problem there can be that companies don't want to share the pieces that are worth a lot of money. If self-driving tech is worth a trillion dollars, I might rather get that trillion dollars for myself and you can wait another 2, 5, 10, 20 years for it to be available.

c22 2y ago

Why would Waymo want to partner with Musk on this?