People will tell you they're fundamentally different, but they are in fact the same. First, there are two different, independent aspects: Perception and Action.

People will tell you they're fundamentally different, but they are in fact the same. First, there are two different, independent aspects: Perception and Action. Seeing the world, vs taking action in that world. For perception Waymo uses more sensors than Tesla. It uses lidar to construct a 3D scene of what the car is seeing, while Tesla uses SLAM-like techniques with their cameras. What people are missing is that these are only a small part of the perception problem - lidar returns a monochromatic 3D scene so it cannot see labels, markings, read signs, lights etc. LIDAR simply doesn't carry the necessary information needed to navigate the world, thus it is a secondary source of info. Cameras in motion do carry all the information needed, so the big difference between them is only one part of the overall perception stack. Once you have constructed a labeled, accurate 3D scene (whether by lidar or SLAM), "action" is the same and there is no difference between Tesla and Waymo here. They both have to learn how to drive safely using the same information, so it's going to be a lot like LLMs where there's difference between LLAMA/Claude/GPT, but they're also all kinda the same thing.