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Telling that this comes right on the heels of the Robotaxi unveil. Google sees a threat.

jqpabc123 2y ago
Waymo is currently providing over 100K driverless rides a week. Tesla has "concepts of a plan" to do something similar --- about where Waymo was in 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2024/10/11/tesla-offers-little-information-on-robotaxi-heres-the-deeper-scoop/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2024/10/11/tesla-...
- fellowniusmonk 2y ago
  It's crazy that when I walk to the taco stand down the street in my sleepy little neighborhood I'll see waymos just hanging out waiting for a ride, and if I wanted I could just hop in one and be robot chauffeured around the city. It's funny how the future arrives and intermingles with the present. Stuff I could only dream of as a kid, things that seemed impossibly far off are here right now. I'll probably have a Rosie in my house before I die and that's pretty incredible.
- stormfather 2y ago
  Are the cars still teleoperated though?
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    They never were. They get occasional labeling / decision making support from humans.
  - atopal 2y ago
    If you mean "driven or steered remotely": They were never teleoperated. I'm assuming that would be completely reckless given the nature of radio networks and possibly because of regulations. The car will call a service once it can't make a decision (this is only when the car is fully stopped), and a human will decide to send out a driver or make a decision in the moment.
- sixQuarks 2y ago
  It’s funny, my Tesla drove me 30 miles yesterday and I didn’t have to do a thing. People in this thread have no idea how good FSD has gotten
  - ra7 2y ago
    You're still in the driver's seat ready to intervene. Others are doing it every 13 miles: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/09/tesla-full-self-driving-requires-human-intervention-every-13-miles/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/09/tesla-full-self-driving...
    - lopkeny12ko 2y ago
      Waymo's remote operators are still sitting in an office intervening and as a passenger you don't even know that it's happening
      - ra7 2y ago
        Except they can't make the kinds of safety critical interventions Tesla driver's in the seat can make i.e. prevent accidents. That's just physics. We know exactly how their remote operation works: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
      - minwcnt5 2y ago
        If my Tesla swerves into oncoming traffic with no warning and I get in a crash, who is responsible? If my Waymo ride does the same, who is responsible?
    - sixQuarks 2y ago
      Yeah, so? You don't think they're going to keep improving it until supervision isn't required?
      - ra7 2y ago
        13 miles per intervention after 8 years of development suggests it’s not happening anytime soon.
- cal5k 2y ago
  > In reality Tesla FSD is still in very primitive shape. From the article. Have the people saying this actually tried the most recent FSD build? I used it yesterday, and it reacted flawlessly to road construction that blocked a lane, then had cones demarcating a lane that didn't follow existing road markings. Then it saw that a driver wanted to turn left from parking lot while approaching a stop light and made space for the driver to turn out. It also flawlessly executed a merge involving turning into a suicide lane and waiting for traffic to pass. It's very good at adapting to changes and can work on roads its never seen before. There is no other production car that can do what FSD can do currently. Does this mean it's ready for full autonomy tomorrow? No, but I could use supervised FSD today if I wanted to drive 1600 miles from Austin to Toronto with hands mostly off the wheel. The pace at which FSD is now improving is quite remarkable. In the long run it's clear that this approach is going to be WAY more flexible than Waymo's, because Tesla has so many more vehicles on the road collecting so much more data, and throwing vast amounts of compute at vast amounts of data is basically the best way to see rapid improvement for the foreseeable future. But sure, "concepts of a plan".
  - jqpabc123 2y ago
    No, but I could use supervised FSD today if I wanted ... Musk has invented his own oxymoron --- "supervised Full Self Driving" --- which means not really full self driving at all. Your car is ready to be a robotaxi --- as long as you are behind the wheel to supervise it. If a driver is required, it's not a robotaxi is it?
    - cal5k 2y ago
      It drives itself with zero control input from me, hands literally off the wheel and feet off the pedals. That's the definition of "full self driving". It's bizarre how people are so adamant about this when they haven't even tried it. Every passenger I've shown this to have had their minds blown.
      - jqpabc123 2y ago
        So sit in the back seat and let the car drive and my mind will be blown --- if you don't get arrested either before or after the crash. Waymo actually does this today. Musk has plans to do this --- someday. It's mind blowing that you can't see the difference.
ra7 2y ago
This was first announced in July: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/23/alphabet-to-invest-another-5b-into-waymo/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/23/alphabet-to-invest-another... Pretty sure Waymo sees very little threat from Tesla, who don't even have a single driverless mile on public roads.
- gmm1990 2y ago
  average miles between intervention in similar driving scenarios would be a better metric. I’m struggling to understand how anyone thinks the robotaxi thing is competition though
  - VikingCoder 2y ago
    There's a few other metrics people should care about: "As of June 2024, there have been forty-four verified fatalities involving Autopilot and hundreds of nonfatal incidents." Have there been any for Waymo? None that I can find.
- sublimefire 2y ago
  You are being disingenuous, "summon" could be considered as fully driverless, so there are a couple of miles. They are getting there for sure, just not at the similar level, which is expected because customers do not care about it that much.
  - devmor 2y ago
    Disingenuous would be trying to counter an argument that Tesla has no driverless operations on public roads with a suggestion that a parking lot party trick counts.
  - ra7 2y ago
    This is silly. The conversation is about L4 autonomy. Summon isn't fully driverless by any stretch of imagination. It requires the driver to be within a few feet and hold down a button in the app (essentially a kill switch). Moreover, the liability is still with the driver.
Ragnarork 2y ago
The Robotaxi is a PR stunt which doesn't look remotely close to be a threat to Waymo right now.
- misiti3780 2y ago
  lol ... right
echelon 2y ago
Robotaxi hasn't deployed anywhere. There are lots of other startups ahead of them in terms of progress. Waymo isn't afraid of a threat. Waymo is dominating the market they created. This is just another chess play to lock up the TAM.
- cal5k 2y ago
  Robotaxi will use the same stack as other Tesla vehicles, which is deployed on millions of vehicles. The <$30k price point and lack of controls/supervision are the only things that truly differentiate it from a Model 3.

Waymo is currently providing over 100K driverless rides a week. Tesla has "concepts of a plan" to do something similar --- about where Waymo was in 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2024/10/11/tesla-offers-little-information-on-robotaxi-heres-the-deeper-scoop/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2024/10/11/tesla-...

fellowniusmonk 2y ago
It's crazy that when I walk to the taco stand down the street in my sleepy little neighborhood I'll see waymos just hanging out waiting for a ride, and if I wanted I could just hop in one and be robot chauffeured around the city. It's funny how the future arrives and intermingles with the present. Stuff I could only dream of as a kid, things that seemed impossibly far off are here right now. I'll probably have a Rosie in my house before I die and that's pretty incredible.
stormfather 2y ago
Are the cars still teleoperated though?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  They never were. They get occasional labeling / decision making support from humans.
- atopal 2y ago
  If you mean "driven or steered remotely": They were never teleoperated. I'm assuming that would be completely reckless given the nature of radio networks and possibly because of regulations. The car will call a service once it can't make a decision (this is only when the car is fully stopped), and a human will decide to send out a driver or make a decision in the moment.
sixQuarks 2y ago
It’s funny, my Tesla drove me 30 miles yesterday and I didn’t have to do a thing. People in this thread have no idea how good FSD has gotten
- ra7 2y ago
  You're still in the driver's seat ready to intervene. Others are doing it every 13 miles: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/09/tesla-full-self-driving-requires-human-intervention-every-13-miles/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/09/tesla-full-self-driving...
  - lopkeny12ko 2y ago
    Waymo's remote operators are still sitting in an office intervening and as a passenger you don't even know that it's happening
    - ra7 2y ago
      Except they can't make the kinds of safety critical interventions Tesla driver's in the seat can make i.e. prevent accidents. That's just physics. We know exactly how their remote operation works: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
    - minwcnt5 2y ago
      If my Tesla swerves into oncoming traffic with no warning and I get in a crash, who is responsible? If my Waymo ride does the same, who is responsible?
  - sixQuarks 2y ago
    Yeah, so? You don't think they're going to keep improving it until supervision isn't required?
    - ra7 2y ago
      13 miles per intervention after 8 years of development suggests it’s not happening anytime soon.
cal5k 2y ago
> In reality Tesla FSD is still in very primitive shape. From the article. Have the people saying this actually tried the most recent FSD build? I used it yesterday, and it reacted flawlessly to road construction that blocked a lane, then had cones demarcating a lane that didn't follow existing road markings. Then it saw that a driver wanted to turn left from parking lot while approaching a stop light and made space for the driver to turn out. It also flawlessly executed a merge involving turning into a suicide lane and waiting for traffic to pass. It's very good at adapting to changes and can work on roads its never seen before. There is no other production car that can do what FSD can do currently. Does this mean it's ready for full autonomy tomorrow? No, but I could use supervised FSD today if I wanted to drive 1600 miles from Austin to Toronto with hands mostly off the wheel. The pace at which FSD is now improving is quite remarkable. In the long run it's clear that this approach is going to be WAY more flexible than Waymo's, because Tesla has so many more vehicles on the road collecting so much more data, and throwing vast amounts of compute at vast amounts of data is basically the best way to see rapid improvement for the foreseeable future. But sure, "concepts of a plan".
- jqpabc123 2y ago
  No, but I could use supervised FSD today if I wanted ... Musk has invented his own oxymoron --- "supervised Full Self Driving" --- which means not really full self driving at all. Your car is ready to be a robotaxi --- as long as you are behind the wheel to supervise it. If a driver is required, it's not a robotaxi is it?
  - cal5k 2y ago
    It drives itself with zero control input from me, hands literally off the wheel and feet off the pedals. That's the definition of "full self driving". It's bizarre how people are so adamant about this when they haven't even tried it. Every passenger I've shown this to have had their minds blown.
    - jqpabc123 2y ago
      So sit in the back seat and let the car drive and my mind will be blown --- if you don't get arrested either before or after the crash. Waymo actually does this today. Musk has plans to do this --- someday. It's mind blowing that you can't see the difference.

ra7 2y ago

This was first announced in July: https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/23/alphabet-to-invest-another-5b-into-waymo/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/23/alphabet-to-invest-another... Pretty sure Waymo sees very little threat from Tesla, who don't even have a single driverless mile on public roads.

gmm1990 2y ago
average miles between intervention in similar driving scenarios would be a better metric. I’m struggling to understand how anyone thinks the robotaxi thing is competition though
- VikingCoder 2y ago
  There's a few other metrics people should care about: "As of June 2024, there have been forty-four verified fatalities involving Autopilot and hundreds of nonfatal incidents." Have there been any for Waymo? None that I can find.
sublimefire 2y ago
You are being disingenuous, "summon" could be considered as fully driverless, so there are a couple of miles. They are getting there for sure, just not at the similar level, which is expected because customers do not care about it that much.
- devmor 2y ago
  Disingenuous would be trying to counter an argument that Tesla has no driverless operations on public roads with a suggestion that a parking lot party trick counts.
- ra7 2y ago
  This is silly. The conversation is about L4 autonomy. Summon isn't fully driverless by any stretch of imagination. It requires the driver to be within a few feet and hold down a button in the app (essentially a kill switch). Moreover, the liability is still with the driver.

Ragnarork 2y ago

The Robotaxi is a PR stunt which doesn't look remotely close to be a threat to Waymo right now.

misiti3780 2y ago
lol ... right

echelon 2y ago

Robotaxi hasn't deployed anywhere. There are lots of other startups ahead of them in terms of progress. Waymo isn't afraid of a threat. Waymo is dominating the market they created. This is just another chess play to lock up the TAM.

cal5k 2y ago
Robotaxi will use the same stack as other Tesla vehicles, which is deployed on millions of vehicles. The <$30k price point and lack of controls/supervision are the only things that truly differentiate it from a Model 3.