I really didn't expect such a response from HN! I guess the Elon energy is still going strong. Thanks for staying polite though :) probably the only place on th

I really didn't expect such a response from HN! I guess the Elon energy is still going strong. Thanks for staying polite though :) probably the only place on the internet where polite convos about such a divisive topic/figure/company are still taking place. Suffice to say, I really don't think drive time comparisons by biased unpaid beta testers is a good way to measure viability in this market. Safety, regulatory cooperation, and ethics branding are going to be paramount, all of which Tesla is known to struggle with, to say the least. Again though, the biggest problem is technical. I think the evidence is objective and clear that LiDAR guarantees a level of safety unattainable with cameras alone. Not only will this slow down development, it also highlights the issues above; how many more "Tesla swerves into a white semi-truck because the sun was reflecting off of it in a weird way" stories could they survive before backlash? Especially when the passengers are random people instead of invested enthusiasts, many of which have their retirement investments tied up in the company's worth. You can laugh at Zoox, but A) based on what...? it's still in the R&D phase, there's no consumer product to laugh at, and B) there's certainly a lot of smart people still working on it, and money pouring in. Again, (AFAICT as an outsider-) it's night-and-day compared to orgs Amazon has abandoned, like Alexa.