Tesla versus Waymo: Two Very Different Roads to Full Autonomy.

This is from the Bloomberg article posted a week ago, right?

I’m just really excited to see what the future holds for fully autonomous vehicles 🫢

One is driving passengers and the other isn’t

The equipment Waymo uses is very expensive and it would not be practical to build a consumer vehicle with it. But for overall redundancy it’s clearly better to have the extra sensors in the Waymo vehicle.

Considering Waymo already has level 4/5 (albeit geofenced) I'd say they've already "won", assuming the finish line is level 4/5 autonomy. If the finish line is what will be available to normal people in a few years, then perhaps Tesla's approach will "win".

HW4 only has 2 cameras in the rear view mirror assembly.

I recently heard Waymo is doing more taxi rides in San Francisco than Lyft.

I wouldn't be surprised. From what I've heard, Waymo is cheaper than a regular Lyft or Uber, and it offers the convenience of not having to get into a random stranger's car. Edit: Apparently, Waymo isn't actually cheaper than Lyft or Uber. Pricing probably depends on the time of day and location, though.

So Tesla has never watched a superhero movie?? I never understood Tesla’s (Musk’s) reliance on “vision” because that’s how the world has been set up for humans to navigate it. Why not give the cars a “superpower” like LiDAR to enhance what vision provides? Seems like a no brainer to give an autonomous vehicle an advantage.

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Alright, thanks for clarifying. I haven't actually used a Waymo taxi yet, as I don't live near any of the cities they service. I'm subscribed to r/Waymo, and a common thing I've seen on the subreddit is that Waymo is a cheaper service than human driver taxis.

No wonder…. Waymo is much safer than Tesla.

Cost. It’s always about cost.

It’s the same thing with bipedal robots. Why does it need to only have two legs? A third leg for stability gives you … so much more and reduces the complexity of balance by so much, but we are OBSESSED with making a robot in our image. It’s weird.

Tesla will never achieve level 4 or 5 with cameras only (imo).

a couple of observations: 1. New Tesla's have front bumper cameras. 2. One of these you can own, the other you can not. 3. LiDAR uses line of sight just like cameras, although LiDAR is much more accurate.

These are two ends of a spectrum, and they will progress toward the center until we have a great product. Tesla will have to continue to add hardware and capabilities to meet the demands of full automation Waymo will have to cut costs and hardware to make it affordable / profitable.

I can't count it as winning when you can't plop the car in a random location and have it get to a destination with a standard map.  Geo fenced isn't the entire story. It's not just limited there because they order it to, it's also limited there because that's all it can do. To go outside of it isn't removing a limit, they have to do work.  Compare it to Google street view. My parents live om a side road next to a main road. All these years later, there has never been a street view car on their street. All these lidar systems have the same limit. Sure they could fix that in hour, apparently, but doing that over and over is death by a thousand paper cuts. Then they have to do it over again when roadworks or anything major changes.  Its simply not scalable when it needs this much work. Standard maps on the other hand update so much easier.

That’s not what you said though. Waymo is generally cheaper than taxis. Waymo is not generally cheaper than Lyft / Uber.

Thing is if you picked that waymo car up from SF and dropped it in Idaho I'm not sure where it would fall from "struggles mightily" to "basically a paperweight". They both have scaling issues. Tesla's went the "something everywhere" route. Waymo went the "everything somewhere" route.

Imagine driving around with your head fixed to one location on the windshield. I wouldn't trust myself to drive like that. If a plastic bag or bird poop covered that small area then I am screwed. Redundant sensors are definitely necessary.

My Tesla drives me and my passengers all the time

This is a ChatGPT post (not the image, the text in the post)

That huge thing on top is just cameras?

I think it's important to note that Waymo isn't even remotely close to being a successful, profitable business. The technology is very impressive, but they're not charging less than taxis because their business model allows it - they just want to make the system more accessible to that people keep using it and they keep testing it.

When I was in Phoenix, Waymo was almost half the price of a comparable Lyft/Uber ($20 for a 7 mile ride to the airport from my hotel vs $40 for Lyft/Uber). Most of the time its similar or less.

How will autonomous vehicles ever handle bad actors? Imagine panhandlers walking up to the front of the car and refusing to leave until the passengers pay up. Or robbers blocking the road and starting to smash the windows.

Can we all agree that Tesla is more aesthetically pleasing without bringing politics into it?

Waymo is far superior. I would never trust a single-band solution. Tesla lost when they removed radar.

This is false

I can't even count how many times I would get a "camera obstructed or unavailable" message on my Tesla and I'd lose access to so many basic features like cruise control. I'm curious how issues like that are supposed to be handled with the Robotaxi. It's so reliant on a single tech and a singe point of failure seems to be able to render is unusable that I have my doubts.

Cameras can produce a point cloud in much higher resolution than lidar: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuq0C4AYt0E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuq0C4AYt0E)

And they are missing the front bumper cam. \* Already standard in the Juniper Model Y and Cybertruck. \* Leaked for the Model S and X Refresh. \* No mention of the front bumper cam for the Model 3.

Front Bumper cam has been spotted on a Model 3. [Model 3 Front Bumper Cam](https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2623/tesla-mule-model-3-spotted-with-front-bumper-camera)

I wonder how much it will cost to lose the autonomous driving race though…

Lidar is more accurate in measuring distances. However it doesn't know color. So it can't read traffic signs, road markings or traffic light. To fix this, lidar based systems also use cameras. The problem is when the camera disagrees with the lidar. Which do you trust? Lidar can be much better, so you trust lidar. But that lidar is too expensive. As you reduce the cost for the lidar, the reliability goes down to a comparable level as the camera. And then it becomes pointless to have lidar. So lidar is going to win the race to full autonomy. But it's probably going to lose the race to a profitable solution.

The coolest robot concept I have seen was the robot having basically large rollerskate wheels with motors on each leg. Still able to walk up stairs but also much faster in a straight line on smooth surface.

Tesla came from behind with FSD and is, when you remove geofencing, ahead of Waymo, in basically 3 years with the AI based FSD. They both have the same edge case challenge. Tesla will win this. My CT FSD is an order of magnatude better than when I purchased it less than a year ago. We just drove from AL to TX and back and I bet I didn't touch the steering wheel for more than 20 minutes in 20 hours of driving.

I had a bird poop right on top of my Tesla’s windshield camera once, and it disabled all sorts of things until I drove to a gas station to wipe it off. Which reminds me, charging stations should have squeegees.

Waymo’s still can’t go on highways. That’s a massive disadvantage

More information is always better. It's just judging where the balance between the increase in safety vs cost and scalability.

Those aren’t used for FSD

If it's geofenced it can only be level 4, not 5. Level 5 implies that it can handle everything a human driver could. Tesla is still at level 2, however I'd argue that the two are not really comparable, because Teslas are consumer hardware and waymo is basically a science project.

Your non hater - not biased comment is a bless in this world of extremist positions. Thanks.

That’s the current understanding. But why would the front bumper cam be on the cybercab, if it’s not used for FSD?

They’re very useful for parking, I wouldn’t be surprised if the auto-parking uses it

Tesla has been claiming FSD will launch any minute now for 10 years, Waymo is driving people all over SF

Tesla is so far behind and they don’t want to admit it. Cameras only are not the way forward. I love my MY and FSD but this is not the future.

Waymo isn't a "lidar" system, it's a "everything" system. It has cameras too. Maps and lidar are just extra levels of safety they use to solve ambiguities — things like the [roadrunner problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iWvedIhWjM).

I’ve come across a couple, should definitely be standard. But I’ve only seen them when the charger is at a gas station.

I agree with you that Tesla will eventually win. That’s awesome about your hands free road trip.

That’s true. That’s why Elon/Team didn’t go with the lidar option. It was discussed at one point.

Another major factor that hasn’t really been talked about. This doesn’t matter as much for taxi service vehicles but certainly does for any car you can own. The redundancy of sensors have an extra financial cost, but they also have a huge energy cost too. You triple the number of sensors and you’re going to be cutting range to run them all. Especially additional compute power to process all the data.

Waymo hardware

Yes but cameras are susceptible to atmospheric conditions. Dust, fog, glare. You ever taken a bad picture? I honestly don't understand why they wouldn't use a readily available technology (Radar/Lidar) They (tesla) have employed redundant systems (CT drive by wire) for critical systems. If they insist on going vision only they should at least add a thermal camera. IMO

And one is putting millions of vehicles on the road whilst the other isn't. They're both solving different parts of the same overall problem in a different order.

Also, FSD: utter shit Waymo: actually works Source: I’ve had FSD since late v.9. Edit: added context below

yea, any June is good, we don't know which one will be though.

As someone who lives in the bay area you see them on the highways often. Just not something available to consumers just yet.

What is it about cameras only that specifically rules out level 4 or 5?

From the buyers' perspectives, sure, Tesla wins bc of the cost. But in terms of "robotaxi", tesla is a joke compared to waymo bc of the technologies you listed. I am not gonna bet on my life to ride tesla without a driver just yet. Too many mistakes by my Tesla's FSD. Sure, the robotaxi might have a new software, but I doubt there will be any major difference unless they have things other than the 8 cameras.

Why does everyone always think there has to be a "winner" in this race? Both will have advantages/disadvantages. I suspect eventually they will start to get more like each other though. Waymo may drop some sensors/cameras, Tesla may pick up some cameras/sensors. I suspect it's more likely Tesla will add sensors since the cost of adding and the computing power to process them has been dropping steadily. BUt I think Tesla will stick with keeping the cars good looks. Don't be expecting a large bubble of sensors on the roof like waymo anytime soon. Self driving is like in the just barely can walk stage (more like can barely stand up). There will be many many improvements to both types of systems over the years. It's a exciting time.

I’d argue its on par with pricing with the luxury Uber/Lyfts, since you are in a luxury car with complete control of music, air, privacy etc whereas an Uber X could be someone clapped out econobox that smells like lung cancer lol. And no tips!

They're both attacking the problem from opposite extremes and will meet in the middle.

Well kinda.. I mean parking will be part of FSD, so while not used when driving sure, but will be used for parking.

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it’s for near vehicle object detection, not only for parking but driving in slower speeds.

Nodar achieves much more visibility than lidar in bad weather conditions: [https://youtu.be/-xQQoZTka\_o?t=412](https://youtu.be/-xQQoZTka_o?t=412) It also has a much longer distance. If those claims from Nodar are true, I don't see why there should be other sensors needed. Working with multiple point clouds simultaneously is also very challenging. Also lidar can be affected by rain, fog, snow, direct sunlight etc. Especially heavy rain and fog scatter the laser light and can significantly reduce detection range and accuracy. Keep it as simple as possible.

I’m just wondering if Tesla’s quest for LIDAR-less self-driving is worth the need and desire for exotic software processing and low part count vs developing an in-house LIDAR module from that probably would’ve solved their problems years ago.

No way man, they have to get into a ring fight and finish one or the other to the death! No way there could be two! That's like 7 minutes abs! No /s

Lasers, on top of angry beavers that deploy through the frunk!

The one that is cheaper with fewer parts will always win.

Machine Learning is a beautiful thing.

You didn’t mention that one actually works while the other hasn’t, isn’t, and probably won’t.

They're probably keeping the price at that point deliberately, tbh. You eliminate certain demographics from your customer base by not offering the cheapest rides, and that can be beneficial in terms of upkeep etc.

Agreed

Not to mention it's literally the least efficient system. And it's not helping acceptance. It's just replacing people, a turbo-capitalists dream. The point of robots was always to do things in ways humans can't. That's how you get car frames rotating around the parts being put in them during assembly, instead of the other way around. No company is realistically going to mass-adopt humanoid robots on the vague notion of "doing everything." Because the things they CAN do, a human will generally do better.

My experience in PHX as well. I couldn’t get an Uber at the airport. I downloaded Waymo, registered and found a car before Uber did.

The main difference is this: Waymo have autonomous vehicles and Tesla do not. “Which philosophy will win” is a ridiculous question. Waymo HAVE won. They have driverless vehicles successfully operating for a long time in several US cities and are continuing to expand. Tesla have… nothing.

So is Ford. Are they winning too?

Noise vs signal.

CamERAs aRe bEttEr

Anybody who's ever crested a hill and gotten blasted by the sun resulting in a HARD slamming of the brakes might appreciate a little extra technology. I think we're still very early on the curve though, can't wait to see what we have in 5 years.

Parking and off-roading . But it could be added for fsd

In Atlanta, a Waymo is hailed via Uber and there isn’t an option for it. It’s just an Uber X and sometimes you get a Waymo. So it’s exactly the same price.

I can hail a Waymo right now in my city. I don’t think that’s a science project.

AI slop text

Be nice if most had some sort of covering like gas pumps do too.

Nope your Tesla and yourself drives your passengers.

Same. It’s going to be amazing.

Lidar costing more money is bit of misconception or missing the bigger picture. In order to go without lidar or other physical sensors your visual only AI need to be far far very far more sophisticated than the one Waymo utilizes. This development costs combined with expected decrease in cost of lidar and other hardware make it more challenging to compare which system truly costs more or less in the long run. Elon is underestimating how good visual only AI needs to be in order to have a truly self driving car.

The more technology evolves and with the partnership of other countries like Japan we will all be driving fully autonomous vehicles in the next 15 years.

I've had both positive and negative with Waymo. Several times waymo parked at the opposite side of the street. Other times it took almost 15 minutes for the vehicle to match me, and another 15 minutes for it to reach me during some peak travel periods, while other options would've been much faster.

If I can barely see the road while driving into the sunset with sunglasses on and visor down, I imagine the 1.2 megapixel camera on my M3 will be a limiting factor for a truly safe FSD.

🤔

I see the defense for Tesla using cameras only is well humans mainly rely on their eyes for driving so FSD can do the same with its cameras. Well humans sometimes see things that aren't there...or don't see things that are there. So the logic should also be that vision only can make the same mistakes human do but I never see that gets talked about.

Real talk.

For all the off roading the cybercab will be doing?

Preaching truth right here!

Have you tried updating the firmware? 😆 just kidding.

If you want to drive safely into the sunset, then regardless of anything else, you still need cameras that work in that condition. There is no other sensor that can see all lane markers and read road signs, for example. Fortunately, just like you can use sunglasses, cameras can use filters to directly address this problem. With the right camera setup, taking video of a sunset is no problem. I don't know whether Teslas currently have those filters, but I don't think this is a reason why cameras only cannot reach level 4 or 5.

Nah, what we do not hear is that Waymo's solution isn't the answer either, they are racking up accidents as fast as they deploy new routes. What will be interesting is watching robotaxi's accident rate when per route as we can make near direct comparisons by miles driven. https://www.damfirm.com/waymo-accident-statistics.html

Is the third lens not a camera? My 2024 M3 definitely has three circles inside the rear view mirror assembly.

With how many millions of Teslas are on the road currently, imagine if each of them had an extra $10,000+ hardware cost....

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I'm not sure how Tesla will operate during bad weather without Lidar. When it rains hard or gets foggy, most cameras can't handle it. Having Lidar will help see through it all.

>I’ve had FSD since late v.9 An honest question, why?

Yeah, just took a Waymo home from PHX airport last night. It was 10% cheaper than other ride shares (before accounting for the tip I would have given to an uber/lyft driver), and way nicer/cleaner of a car. Waymo rocks.

Plus you don’t have to have awkward, forced conversations with drivers.

I mean one is driverless and one is supervised/unsupervised but still with driver. That’s the difference. If Tesla wants to go full driverless, they need fallback LiDAR and HD radar.

How would you take a cyber cab off roading? Maybe you thought I was talking about the cyber truck?

Can’t or choose not to? I expect that they are capable of driving on highways at a level of safety greater than FSD, but waymo isn’t satisfied with the level of safety yet.

Yup. Waymo is the default for tons of people. Wouldn’t be surprised if Waymo surpasses 50% of the entire ride share market in SF by end of next year. SF is also horrendous for driving. Extremely steep hills makes visibility in some intersections nearly zero for typical drivers.

I was in SF two weeks ago and Waymo was cheaper for the 4-5 rides we took. It was even cheaper just when taking the fare into account, not even considering the tip!

Why would Tesla drop sensors only to put them back. The whole idea is to standardise the sensors / cameras across the entire fleet to be cheaper.

Lidar performance is also severely degraded by fog or rain. It's radar that shine through when it rains/fogs. But radar can't give you precise location of all the objects around the car (also slightly degraded in rain), so it'll be combination of all these sensors to push through rain and fog. That's why Waymo is primarily on good weather cities.

Nah. Cameras only is possible if we use cameras that have the same resolution and dynamic range as human eyes. Nearly impossible and probably more expensive than going Lidar, but it’s doable. Just not at all doable with the shitty cameras Tesla uses now.

A rat chewed through some of the eco-friendly wires in my Tesla, I filed an insurance claim with Tesla. It took two months to get my car back, and I had to pay out of pocket for a rental car for three and a half weeks. Unfortunately, I learned that this timeframe is not an anomaly; it is the standard wait for any repairs that are not purely cosmetic.

It’s like those I’m a Mac and I’m a PC ads from a long time ago

This is the answer. Although most Tesla hardliners don't want to hear that either HD radar or Lidar will need to be added to the stack for level5.

I don't think LIDAR would solve all of Tesla's problems as easily as people say. If that were the case, Waymo would be available in every city by now, would be able to drive on highways, and would be able to drive outside of its tiny, heavily mapped, geofenced areas. Tesla wants to eventually enable autonomous driving everywhere, and I think the main hurdle for that is the software and processing abilities, not the sensors. I mean, Lucids and many other vehicles have LIDAR, and yet still have driver assist systems that are vastly inferior to what Tesla has. It's all about the software IMO, not the sensors. Sensors can help a bit if you already have incredibly complex software, but they aren't "the solution".

Cool story bro. If Tesla itself had your level of confidence, Cybercab would already be a thing.

>Why does everyone always think there has to be a "winner" in this race? With two or more "winners", it would be hard to justify 150+ P/E ratio, especially with already shringking margins in the core business.

LiDAR is no better at poor weather than cameras. RADAR can see through it, but lacks the signal resolution of the other two, so doesn't know what it's seeing without confirmation from one of the others. In any case, the important thing is to handle signal degradation safely. What do you do when you can't see well? Drive slower. AVs can do the same thing.

At least for me, FSD used to be utter shit on my '18 Model 3 (HW3)--it was so bad that I'd switch to basic AP for road trips or if I had a passenger in my car. On my '24 Model Y, it's been pretty good for the past year or so. I can finally use it for my commute and rarely need to intervene. My main gripe is that it doesn't accelerate enough at times even if it's in hurry mode. But I'll be impressed when it can consistently avoid potholes and road debris. At least it does a pretty good job of slowing down for speed bumps (finally).

I manage with 2 eyes

I think the "winner" is the first one at level 5 *and* profitable.

Thanks for the summary. It is clear to me. Waymo is more advanced and has an actual automonus system. Tesla is just more affordable and can be adopted readily. But Tesla requires drivers actually pay attention. It fails because it is fixed vision dependent and lacks certain angles. For example waymo has the lidar mounted at the top and then on an elevated platform. That allows the system to see over most vehicles on the road. Except for a few much taller vans, trucks, and modified lifted trucks. The Tesla is fixed on the front windshield and needs to be further back to see above and beyond. But then that limits resolution as the chip sensors are already small. Tesla is just more available but it really requires driver training and information. Like MCAS by Boeing. Luckily drivers need to know that they have to take over. Glare is an obvious case. Can't see what you can't see either. Waymo system just works and has an elevated platform. No limit to adverse weather conditions. Either way I cant afford neither systems and just rely on my own pay attention to road conditions.

I wish that Reddit was a place where this was the substance of the post rather than the tribal bull shit we get instead. Everything ends up being about nuance. Everything is complicated yet we still gobble up simple headlines as if we’re cavemen that just want to win a sports ball match.

The difference is that Elon keeps yelling that current hardware will bring FSD, while nobody at Waymo says that current hardware is the end goal.

Ya know, i have a theory where I think there is a game at play and hardware is a distraction. Tesla has built an AI-backed autonomous system using only visual data. One that, when weather is good, is far better performantly than any other system out there on what could be described as very limited data informing it. Waymo has constructed a system that by nature of having it available in development, requires the use of all these sensors, cameras and lidar to reach only a partial functional capability (comparatively). Now, imagine if Tesla took what has been built so far, the reasoning, the foundational code in place today that is so efficient on just visual data - and added in more hardware a little at a time as it becomes more affordable and compact.. I don’t think Tesla is focusing on hardware because I think leadership is intentionally priming the base code to operate on data scarcity. They’re forcing a development culture to build things that have a high chance of success even when it can’t be sure. Take years of code, culture around this idea and a working system that’s already superior to competition and then allow it to expand the information it knows. In other words, I think visual only is not just for cost, but to control the incentives behind the software development mindset. Tesla is software first and, if I’m right, I think that’s the far and wide winning strategy. Once it’s ticking, adding more data connectors to it is easy scaling.

I would be concerned that the hard pivot away from other sensor types makes it hard for Tesla to backtrack on that. I hope they do though. I feel pretty comfortable in saying that a camera-only system is too sensitive to outside interference for it to be the only system in a self-driving car. They had some pretty good ideas about radars in the earlier days. I hope they povot back towards a more sensible middle ground.

Tesla ist noch Leader in self driving vehicles. They Just pretend to do so.

Humans only have two sensors (working in unison)

I used Waymo on a trip to SF last year. They were great. I prefer it over Uber in fact and liked that i didn't have to tip a driver on top of the fee. I was impressed with how it handled variable along the trip like pedestrians on scooters, jaywalkers, cars parked on the side of the street waiting to pick someone up, etc. 10/10

In my experience it was competitive in price only when not factoring in tipping your Uber driver. Not having to tip made it cheaper at the time for me which was last year in SF.

Waymo absolutely can do all of that, the geofenced deployment isn’t a technical limitation, it was a logistical and legal one. Waymo cars have been driving on highways for years, and they’ve been tested all over the world in all weather conditions. Tesla’s lack of sensor means they’ve spent years solving the sensing problem, which makes them far behind Waymo in terms of actual driving and decision making. 10 years ago Waymo started using computer vision to recognize police/construction worker hand gestures. Can Tesla do that today?

Waymo has an insanely rich benefactor (130 billion in profit, yearly), so they have a lot of runway to get to a viable money making profit.

Out of curiousity, what is Tesla’s plan for heavy rain or fog that currently will make FSD deactivate?

* I see a retrofit kit for bumper camera for HW4 coming in the near future. * The next generation sensor kit for HW5 is already in R&D. Whatever the AI team find to be restricting sensor data or computing power on the current generation of production Teslas will be addressed in the next generation of AI deployment kit. For example, auto-clean systems for the sensors will be considered. * Cost of Sensors/AI for FSD would increase to deal with nighttime/limited-visibility and all other challenging driving conditions. However, for Tesla, a rising cost is a better approach than reducing the cost of other sensor technologies, like those used by Waymo.

Sounds like Waymo is lacking

A human has eyes, ears, and a brain. We don’t have radar or lidar. Why do people think we need radar and lidar? Sure, it can help, but it would also drive up costs, both to buy and to repair.

Tesla's minimal approach only works if they gain huge chunk of market share, which seemed like they could have done years ago. However, the safer solution is going to win here and I think Waymo now has the advantage. Being better than a human driver is enough when you're the only option, but will multiple players now, its about being the safest. Tesla really needs to blanket the markets with driverless taxis soon otherwise they will have no path to beating Waymo.

Tried Waymo in SF downtown and honestly it drove wayy better than hw3. There isn’t jerkiness when leaving from a dead stop and overall smoother. Tesla hardware cameras in have trouble in “rain” and the automatic wiper detection is a fact that cameras can’t be the only sensor when doing autonomous driving. It the wipers turn on in a dry bright ass day, I can’t say i have much hope with the camera either.

I agree. The ultimate solution lies in the middle. Waymo will ultimately simplify but in my opinion, to be successful, Tesla will have to add at least Lidar. Cameras have too many weak spots - blinded by sun, can’t see in the dark, get dirty, don’t work in inclement weather. No amount of software can fix these limitations.

Here is an AI generated reply: Currently, Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) can be affected by weather conditions like heavy rain and fog, which can lead to deactivation. Tesla's current plan to address this involves the following: Focus on Vision-Based System: Tesla is committed to a vision-only approach for FSD, relying solely on cameras to navigate. They are actively working on improving the system's ability to handle challenging conditions like low visibility due to rain or fog. Software Updates: They are constantly improving the FSD software through updates, and these updates may include enhancements to improve its performance in adverse weather. Driver Assistance Features Remain: It's crucial to remember that FSD is still considered a driver-assistance system, and requires constant human supervision. Drivers should remain alert and be prepared to take over at any time, especially in challenging weather conditions. Important Considerations: Obstructions: Dirty cameras and sensors can significantly affect Autopilot performance, which includes FSD. Visibility limitations due to rain or fog can obstruct the view of the cameras, leading to performance issues. Limitations: Tesla's owner's manual warns against using Autopilot features like Auto Lane Change in poor weather conditions like heavy rain, snow, or fog. Ongoing Development: Tesla is continuously gathering data from its vehicles to improve the FSD system's performance across various scenarios, including adverse weather. In summary, while Tesla's FSD system is still under development and can be affected by weather conditions, the company is actively working to improve its capabilities through software updates and their focus on the vision-only approach. It's vital for drivers to remain engaged and understand the system's limitations, especially in situations where visibility is limited.

Where there is a will there is a way. Elon is ambitious and he knows what he has to do to compete with Waymo. Create his own FSD taxi service using Teslas.

You forgot total vehicles capable of self driving... I am afraid we may see a niagara falls level of cash flowing in as tesla ramps up the cab service. Tesla: 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 HW4 Waymo: 1,500

I have to agree. However, they are always working on improvement.

his judgement is questionable at best now. He picked the right lanes with the S, 3, Y. The X was good enough car from a brand perspective, but very complicated and expensive to manufacture. The CT is a complete flop, Semi is going no where, Roadster went no where. FSD promises have all been misses. He also destroyed the brand to millions of americans. Even if he finds the right driverless product, many consumers will not use it.

The question I come to... Is there an advantage to heavily favoring one side initially? This might actually suggest Tesla's approach as potentially having an advantage. You later bring in a radar or lidar to effectively truth the vision only approach. It goes something like "I want to drive in this direction, I believe there's nothing in my path, but let's check it with a radar/lidar". The actual decisions are mostly done by the vision sensors. It also lets you spec out a lidar/radar very specifically when you get to actually needing it (minimal cost).

Anyone who owns a m3 knows just how often the various cameras get blocked or blinded by rain or just not enough light. I can't believe they would allow a cameras only approach to robotaxis. Feels like letting a fleet of 737 maxs roam the streets. Feels like a totally avoidable tragedy is setting up.

It's almost like elon doesn't care about safety

I would feel more comfortable riding in a Waymo today. Waymo will decrease redundancy as it gains more confidence and the winning configuration will likely be somewhere in between.

I hear you, but also, what do YOU currently do in intense fog and rain? Drive super slowly until visibility improves, or if your visibility is so obscured its not safe to proceed, maybe pull over for a few minutes. Its not like cameras are at an inherent disadvantage to our current setup

The human visual system uses “cameras only” and has significant issues with depth perception errors such as the Vection Illusion and the Auto-kinetic Effect. More modalities = More safety

on top of that advantage, teslas biggest one is the sheer amount of data they get from their vehicles. not to mention the idea that they'll let owners choose if they want their personal vehicle to be used as a robotaxi for them. it adds an immense number to their fleet immediately with no extra cost

we could buy google glass in 2014. look at it now, a paperweight science project by alphabet, same company.

Cameras, like our eyes, have no fallback to sense for obstacles when we’re blinded, especially distant objects. Technology that can fill that gap exists. Self driving cars will be judged and regulated on their failures. Not having failsafes to bolster the system’s performance could hinder their ability to get approval for L4/L5 use, and any catastrophic failures as a result of the same limitations our eyes have won’t bode well for public or regulatory trust in the system.

Never drove a Tesla, or been in a Waymo, but I do have Subaru with EyeSight driver assist on it. It's a much simpler system, of course, but after 2 years here's what I've noticed. The lane centering seems to *mostly* rely on two front-facing cameras. It's pretty good! However, it definitely makes mistakes or gets confused sometimes. I don't have complete faith in it, especially in situations where the road is a little weird or there is a lot of glare on the glass (driving into the setting sun for example). The dynamic cruise control portion definitely relies on the front-facing radar, and it has *never* made a mistake of any kind. It doesn't get confused, it doesn't turn itself off, and it has never had a close call. Again, I know Subaru's EyeSight is hardly "self-driving", but it's convinced me that you HAVE to have some kind of radar/lidar at least. It's the only way the car can definitely *know* whether an obstacle is in front of it or not.

> Technology that can fill that gap exists. What technology can see the lane markers on roads when the cameras are blinded?

yeah, he is going to be downvoted into oblivion. the reddit ragebait train must go on.

> 10 years ago Waymo started using computer vision to recognize police/construction worker hand gestures. Can Tesla do that today? No, Teslas can’t, but you’re proving my point… recognizing hand gestures is a software problem, not a sensor problem. Tesla cameras can see the hand gestures just fine… Tesla just hasn’t programmed the system or trained the AI to understand and act on them yet. That’s why I said adding sensors will not solve all of Tesla’s problems… they still have plenty of improvements that can and must be done in software. Waymo can drive on highways and Tesla FSD can drive without anyone supervising, but there are reasons neither company allows them to do those things with customers in them, and it’s not just about logistics and legality… it’s because neither company has perfected autonomous driving yet… turns out it’s pretty hard, even with all of the sensors in the world.

No, I’m telling you Tesla has been wasting time trying to solve sensor problems with software, which is why they haven’t made as much progress solving *driving* problems with software. That’s why for years people in the industry have been pointing out why Tesla went down a path that is just silly. Sensors exist for a reason and they are becoming cheaper than ever. All those years wasted by Tesla to make camera performing Lidar’s job could have been used to actually improve driving. Everything Tesla can do Waymo can do better. Even if you drop Waymo into an area outside of its geofence, it will perform better than FSD.

It's basically move fast and break things, or slow and steady. Each have benefits and drawbacks. Initially, Tesla had the advantage in cost and availability, but Waymo now has a commercial service without a driver sitting in the car. No one knows how this tortoise and the hare story will end yet since we're still in the middle of the race.

Yeah, they have been spending more effort on removing the need for sensors, but I wouldn’t necessarily say it was wasted. Even as a level 2 driver assist, I have gotten massive benefit and enjoyment from using FSD since 2022. There’s something to be said about a technology that anyone can purchase and use in their own personal car. Waymo doesn’t service my area and won’t sell a car with their technology to me, and even if they did sell it, I likely couldn’t afford it. Saying Waymo can do everything better is a bit disingenuous IMO. Firstly, it’s largely theoretical because we can’t simply drop a Waymo anywhere and tell it to go, whereas we can do exactly that with FSD. So, there’s something FSD does better. Not to mention, even within Waymo’s tiny geofences, I have seen many FSD vs Waymo comparison videos where FSD objectively did better because it took a highway route and got there in 15 minutes, whereas Waymo couldn’t take the highway and took 45 minutes to do the same route.

The far left one is a plastic plug.

My 2019 Model 3 had lidar and it worked great and then it was disabled. AP worked even in rain.

Tesla FSD suuuuucccckkkkss. I wish I could get a refund.

photons dude...

My understanding is that Tesla utilizes LIDAR in training and validation

I think few people will make the connection that Elon Musk actually has extensive experience with Lidar functionality due to its usage on SpaceX space ships. When he gives his reasons about not using Lidar on cars, and intertwines his explanations with the engineering complications faced with the spacecraft, it is understandable that most people will not be able to comprehend, and think he is nuts. I'm guessing that Waymo does not have many spacecraft engineers in its team, and does not face the problem of understanding their sensors from that perspective.

According to Waymo: Phoenix, SanFran and LA it’s a .41 incidence per 1 million miles for injury reported crashes vs a human 2.8 benchmark.

This will require waymo to make their own low cost EVs, otherwise they are done.

Besides getting dirty (heh) don’t humans have all the same limitations? And they’re all overcome in various ways— wipers, headlights, visors, driving slower. No reason cameras can’t have their own mini washers/wipers, like old [Mercedes headlights](https://static1.hotcarsimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/45.jpg ), to take care of the added dirt issue.

Radar and lidar don't get blocked by a light snow. Relying on cameras is moronic

If waymo was its own standalone public company the CEO would almost certainly be hyping their product. But you’re correct, Musk is and has been overly confident for the sake of share price.

Agreed. Is Waymos plan even to do self driving in a consumer product? I just assumed they were planning taxis, busses, long haul trucking, etc. A market that will allow the expense of all of those sensors and the funny way they will need to be mounted.

The goal of an AI approach is to create a machine that is more than just autonomous. It's adaptable and improves over time [by receiving more data to train on]. Whereas the sensor approach has great functionality and initial safety; the AI approach isn't going to simply stop when something is an obstacle, it's going to maneuver. We've already seen how FSD can be set to three seperate modes, one being a super aggressive mode that cuts people off. This is really the goal here, for it to assist human drivers while reducing human errors. Imagine one day a "designated driver mode" where a person with high alcohol content is unable to drive their vehicle, the vehicle drives them instead. While Waymo can be the designated driver; it can't make the decision, the driver needs to initiate. Hopefully, I am making sense.

Waymo have cut their sensor costs from 75.000USD per car to roughly 7500USD.

There’s a 0 percent chance we end up with the “full camera AI Tesla Vision” that Elon wants if the cars are to go full level 5… heck even now I love that my 2019 M3 has actual radar sensors. As we’ve seen in recent videos the cameras themselves are not enough… ultimately they see in “2D”, and as a result they’re good enough 99.9% of the time… but that still means that 1/1000 times it’s going to make a mistake and that’s just too often. “Better than a human” isn’t good enough - it can’t make mistakes at all. Humans make mistakes all the time. We need some sort of sensor suite, be it lidar or radar, to compliment the cameras and make it fool-proof.

That's a test vehicle for the Cybercab camera locations.

Once the model supports it, the intent is 100% for it to contribute to FSD (this goes for every external facing camera)

And waymos still crashing into newly installed polls on streets xD

I’ve got two Tesla Model Y cars, 2021 and 2023. I do not have FSD on either of them. I do use autopilot at times on the highway but it does not work well. The steering is often confused and still occasionally has ghost reactions, braking for no reason at all. So my conclusion is that Tesla is a huge con that will ultimately fail completely.

I only have one pair of eyes and look at one point at a given time. I don't have radar or lidar, I can still drive safely.

I thought one of the big issues Elon had was that with multiple sensors how do you determine which represents “truth”. Arbitrating between differing sensors seemed to be impossible.

What if a) you also had eyes on the sides and back of your head, and b) your eyes had a FoV suited to the task?

The Waymo cars do have a large blind spot to their sides (though is taken care of by the camera cluster on top of the vehicle)

logically tesla should get high def cams behind the windshield B pillar angle is not enough. needs bumper side wide view and front bumper wide view tbh.

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They're partnering up with a Chinese ev automaker zeekr to do this.

Is this supposed to be a revelation? I remember Musk making a big deal years and years ago about using less sensors than competitors.

How do humans do it with two cameras that have much lower resolution and depth?

By using the same sensors that we use to drive, hearing and sight combined with experience. Tesla has a whole lot of real data.

>especially distant objects Using cameras to detect lane markers is easier to accomplish than detecting both lane markers and distant objects. With a single lens up front, you can choose to expose for the foreground, allowing the background to be blown out, but it’s difficult to properly expose for both at once in difficult lighting conditions.

This is somewhat wrong bc on top of the jaguar there are lidar sensors and not cameras but in the diagram it says that its cameras instead

I think we're getting a bit off-topic. The original statement by the other person was, "Tesla will never achieve level 4 or 5 with cameras only (imo)." My assertion, mostly made via questions, is that there is nothing about a camera only solution that rules out level 4 or 5. It seems like you're saying that the issue you brought up can be solved with multiple cameras or perhaps more complicated image/video processing, and if that's the case, then my assertion would stand. You should be able to achieve level 5 from a camera only solution. (Note that I keep saying camera only, but I actually mean camera only for mapping the environment and objects in the environment. I do not mean to rule out the possibility of using microphones or ultrasonic sensors, like the ones that already exist in Teslas.)

Or it could go the other way. The lidar at the beginning teaches the AI how vision and depth are related. It’s like being born with hearing and then slowly losing it. You’ll be able to read lips much easier rather than starting with no hearing and gaining some hearing later. Spoken language would be completely foreign to you so you wouldn’t know how to interpret it.

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If my robot vacuum can have lidar I don’t know why Tesla can’t.

Wow. Today I learned.

My opinion is that it’ll be tough to get regulatory approval for L4/L5 without having a reliable solution for difficult scenarios like driving directly into the sun. With a camera only system, it may capable of self driving itself 99.9% of time, but I imagine that last .1% will be what it’s judged on for regulatory purposes, as it has the potential for the most catastrophic failures of the system. So even if it does get to the capabilities of L4/5, it may not be approved to be used that way, effectively leaving it at L3.

We already have the answer https://evmagazine.com/self-drive/waymos-avs-safer-than-human-drivers-swiss-re-study-finds

Waymo cars update the HD map as they drive so it is actually a lot more scalable than people think

Problem is they had the hardware and chose to deactivate / remove it

I suspect that the failure rate for camera-only would be lower than the failure rate for camera+lidar+radar. The reason is that I do not think that there is any lighting condition that cannot be compensated for, and so camera failures would be at the rate of hardware failures. You could even test in the lab for lighting conditions far beyond what we see in any day. Flamethrowers and explosions. Maybe Tesla is too cheap to implement proper camera solutions, but that doesn't make it impossible. I don't even think these solutions would be unusually expensive. So, if that's the case, then assuming the same number and quality of cameras, the hardware failure rate of a camera+lidar+radar solution must be higher than the failure rate of a camera only solution. You can't get by without cameras, so the camera failure rate is the base rate, and redundant systems that are not vision based will only increase the failure rate.

Waymo having sensors during development doesn’t mean that it needs those sensors forever til the end of time. For there latest generation they removed one lidar and about a dozen cameras.

I know, which will being each unit closer to 100k than the current high 100's or so. Tesla's cost for Y today is 40k, cybercab will push 20k. Still not close even with the lower cost models Waymo will purchase. At scale Tesla will be able to push cost per mile as far down as 50 or 40 cents a mile. At which point Tesla would still make a ton of profit per unit and Waymo would barely make any and not really have a point to it as a business, at least one worth pouring significant resources into.

It’d be interesting to see the per unit cost comparison as well. Recently with the LA protest, one reporter mentioned a Waymo unit costs upwards of 300k, not sure how accurate this is but much more expensive than even a Model 3P.

> Everything Tesla can do Waymo can do better. Even if you drop Waymo into an area outside of its geofence, it will perform better than FSD. We honestly don’t know that until someone tries, which unfortunately will probably never happen. The next year or two is going to be more interesting than ever. Austin’s Robotaxi launch, and subsequent launches if that’s successful, will really show us FSD’s true capabilities and limits once you take the attentive driver away.

The sensors themselves hardly draw power compared to the actual car. Each lidar runs at about 15 watts and EV batteries are typically in the range of 100,000 watt hours. As for compute, you might actually need more compute to help the AI compensate for the lack of data.

Horses

Not true they use them in engineering vehicles for robo taxi already. Mainly to differentiate curbs from driveway entrances.

Wouldn’t the equivalent be if Teslas FSD “division” was its own standalone public company? In that Waymo has the rest of Alphabet for revenue/a business model, so does Tesla, with Tesla itself bringing in revenue, and not necessarily the FSD portion. In that way, neither company/division should be overpromising the way one is.

If you want to make a car perform as well or better than a human, that should be achievable with the same senses as a human. Adding lidar or radar to crappy programming from visual processing may make it better than without it, but it’s not clear if will help it reach human level. Further, for those of us who have suffered through FSD - me, since before it really existed, but would be there by the end of the year (but not THAT year as it turned out), you can see the extraordinary improvement when they ditched the thousands of pages of deterministic code and replaced it with a large training set. Really night and day! And each update seems to improve on that. To build those training sets you need millions of situations recorded which were handled by humans based on recorded data with a known outcome. Implicit in that is that the human had access to the same data the car is seeing. Regardless of the presence of lidar, the human making the decisions was not seeing the lidar and so not taking that data into account. So it is far harder to learn about what to do with this data. So I think you can reach human level - actually exceed, since the vehicle won’t get distracted or be looking the wrong way - with cameras alone. It’s possible that non-human senses may add something, but I’d feel better seeing that added to a successful human-like driver based on cameras. I don’t think they will really make up for the deficiencies in doing the camera based driving badly.

They do, but we would prefer vehicles which are more reliable than humans, not equal to.

Yep, Tesla suck

You said it's not used for FSD, but it clearly is if it's on the Cybercab. It may not be used with current FSD, however.

I think vision is the way. Humans don't have radar or lidar

> So the logic should also be that vision only can make the same mistakes human do but I never see that gets talked about. I actually wrote a comment mentioning that one of the weaknesses of computer vision is that it is susceptible to optical illusions three days ago. The thing is that whatever optical illusions are there, the rules about roads generally try to outlaw them. Like, if you painted a road such that it looked like it had a giant pothole, but it was actually flat, first, that would almost certainly be illegal in itself, and second, you'd be liable for damages caused by driver confusion. The requirement for level 5 automation doesn't say that the car has to be superior to the best human drivers or anything like that. Also, my personal defense isn't really for "Tesla" so much as for what I see as logic. I thought about this topic and decided that if I were to start a car company today and try to make a FSD vehicle, I would not use lidar or radar.

1. All SD is based on confidence level regardless of the types of sensors used. 2. Lack of resolution in Lidar and radar require heavier reliance on advanced AI to make up for missing detail. 3. Edge-case Handling is always done in software. Multi-modal sensing is already superior for the reason you mentioned - why add a dumb lie when it's already an actual advantage? 4. Waymo has not released data showing they have anywhere near "heavy" onboard compute. You flat out lied. There are so many unnecessary lies in this post that you have to be some kind of paid shill. Also the exclusion of ultrasonic sensors kind of gave it away.

Everything requires software processing.

It’s clearly not my post it’s off of BloombergNEF. I just enjoy reading people’s replies.

Because it's not a super power. It has problems too. But yes, I do still think it would be an advantage

You’re in the wrong subreddit then buddy.

✊

It’s a work in progress. At least that’s what Elon says.

Assume a kid falls down directly in front of the car. Without the bumper camera can the Tesla still see them?

I swear when I was in Los Angeles scoping the Waymo’s I could clearly see lidar in the middle of four surrounding cameras. I thought it was Google street view at first. Looks like they may have just missed the blue dot in the middle of the top of the car in this picture?

Yeah I remember reading something like that too.

True. As long as you don’t drive tired or impaired. Radar and Lidar don’t sleep and can’t get drunk lol.

I don’t think Tesla will fail. They are always evolving.

Not sure why you're using an example of someone painting a giant pothole lol. If it's at night, pouring rain and a black car is broken down on the highway in one of the lanes, the chance of a human spotting that car before it's too late is low. The same goes for FSD. The issue is if there are 2 options, FSD which is a A minus driver vs another self driving product that is better than any human driver, which would you trust more? Which would customers want to use more? I consider myself an excellent driver, why would a trust FSD with my life and my family when I know it's a little less safe than if I was supposed to drive?

Yes sir!

Yup, makes sense to me. Thanks for your feedback.

Tesla does not use LiDAR sensors in its production vehicles for their self-driving system (FSD). However, your understanding that Tesla utilizes LiDAR for training and validation is accurate.

>Why does everyone always think there has to be a "winner" in this race? Because the oil lobby pays a lot of money to slow down their competitors' sales

I hear if you complain enough to Tesla they will give you a 5% discount or a free 3 month subscription on the purchase of their newest model.

Everyone who spreads corporate propaganda is a shill. Regardless of where they are in the chain. It's just more embarrassing for the ones who failed to get paid to do so.

It’s important to clarify that Tesla has not ever used LIDAR in its production vehicles, including the 2019 Model 3. Tesla's approach to self-driving relies on a vision-based system utilizing cameras and radar, coupled with advanced software and neural network processing.

I totally relate to this comment. I love my 2025 Chevy Trax with Chevrolet Safety Assist, which is a suite of driver-assistance technologies. This includes features like automatic emergency braking, forward collision alert, lane keep assist, and more. Additionally, I got the Driver Confidence Package, offering features like rear cross-traffic alert, lane change alert, and adaptive cruise control.

I think there is a blind spot for tesla near A pillar on the either sides. At least thats what I feel from the dashcam views.

Perhaps you’re right. 😳

Perhaps he’ll just need to combine Tesla with SpaceX to make the flying taxi vehicles that hover and cruise around like the Jetsons?

This ⬆️

That’s two more eyes than most teenagers use while driving and texting 😆

I know exactly what you are talking about 😆

The B-pillar cameras might offer better visibility in this area, but that footage isn't typically accessible in the Dashcam display.

So Tesla does more with less. Looks more efficient to me!

They’re worse. Sunshine at the wrong angle can blind them. “Left pillar camera blocked or blinded.”.. every morning on my commute, like clockwork.

Radar can at least tell you *something* is traveling at your 4 o’clock at +10mph.

Aren’t Tesla cameras like 5mp?

It’s actually radar not lidar

And it’ll take another 10 years to be available in mine

HD RADAR has my vote, because it can better penetrate atmospheric attenuation (snow, rain, fog, etc) than LIDAR. Additionally it will have more flexible placement.

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**Thermal Camera** may be another option, it can see though some attenuation like fog and rain. I did not look if it was tested.

This is a dynamic and rapidly changing field. New breakthroughs and unforeseen challenges will impact the trajectories of both companies and the broader autonomous vehicle industry.

Isn't this outdated? HW4 only has 2 cameras in the front windshield. And some models have bumper cameras in the front.

Based off what? A video who taped the camera? You can tape all the cameras minus the front ones and FSD still turns on as seen here https://x.com/actuallyajoke/status/1932514537254592822?s=46&t=wE82kdmtHdRU8D6xSOxmxA

To be fair that’s a situation where a human should also pull over or drive very carefully. The technology doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be as good as humans (which is not a very inspiring baseline).

my model 3 (w fsd) still can't figure out when to run the wipers...

They can easily navigate Houston heavy fog and rain and already do so. Slowing down to meet conditions isnt difficult.

They are literally rolling out lidar-free robo taxi in days and have millions of cars driving around doing 99% of the driving in all kinds of insane weather - and yet people still think we need lidar. The argument is dead. Humans dont need LIDAR because our compute is phenomenal. Neither do cars which can clean their sensors and bring along theirs headlights.

If they could get self-driving working for the every day cost-conscious consumer, then theyd be already using that tech on their fleet. They arent able to make money now, and customers like cars *that look like cars*, not rolling box and cylinder contraptions. Waymos great for public utility use where aesthetics bow to usability. No one would pay that kind of money for a vehicle looking like that.

It’s an honest take, most people are just too emotional to see that but it’s exactly what’s happening. Tesla already seems to slowly be adding front cameras to their whole lineup starting with the new Model Y

You can't solve driving without vision and once you solve vision you don't need lidar. Lidar is a crutch that gets you to insufficient local maximums faster but doesn't get you past them faster. In fact it slows you down as you try to smush vision and lidar together.

You ever been in a taxi? You've already been in a pure vision system.

Tesla already removed their sensors. They're not adding anything.

Less isn't better in this situation

Isn't it great how upvotes on comments/reply don't show or are disabled?

You are a reddit user. Make an engaging post about this image.

I never understood why Tesla stopped using LIDAR, RADAR and US. Yes you can do it with cameras, but there are moments when we can’t see like in heavy rain, fog or intense sunlight. The cars should be able to see more than a human and not be equally as bad as us. At this point it is really cost cutting without the cars getting cheaper. Especially with RADAR and US being cut.

Whoa!! Logical and non bias response; that’s not allow on Reddit

Honestly side facing cameras at the very front of the car would be great when pulling up to a blind corner or where a parked car obscures the lane you want to turn onto so you can't see if there is incoming traffic without practically joining said traffic. Also having radar and lidar is an easy way to make it safer and better than even good human drivers and get cultural buy in. We wouldn't be asking what's the minimum that could maybe work, we should be asking if there are ways we can make it safer and better.

Are you sure? There is a third option. Invest billions of dollars in compute to achieve some sort of artificial general intelligence. Humans don't need lasers to drive. Does the internet automatically accept false equivalencies without a second thought?

Tesla’s next update….. having Optimus in driving seat 👍

We've been driving with only 2 cameras (eyeballs) for 120 years so maybe it's more about intelligence and experience.

Whenever I hear on the news that Waymo is far ahead of everyone with self-driving cars, I think about how many cars they have driving after so many years and how much they cost. Even a child would know that it's not a business. It's a proof of concept. But your average person doesn't think a business has to actually make money to exist, so they think this is normal. It's not. It can't survive except that Google pays the bills.

If LIDAR says something is there and the cameras say there isn't, what should happen? And vice-versa. When you're driving, and your laser eyes see something that your normal eyes don't see, what do you do? I think you'd freak out and crash your car is what I think would most likely happen.

Newest Model Y's that seem to be part of the Robotaxi rollout in Austin also have a front bumper camera. Cybercab also has this front bumper camera as well as the Cybertruck. It's unclear if this will camera will be required for older cars to work on FSD (unsupervised) at this time. There's a chance that when Hardware 3 cars get a retrofit for newer Hardware for FSD (unsupervised) it will include a front bumper camera as well.

Tbh I don't think Waymo will cut sensor. Maybe they will cut a few but nothing significant. The reason I doubt they take any off is that's it's such complex challenge and their model had learned with this sensor array. It would be like taking away some of your peripheral and expecting you to drive safe. It would take the car relearning bits. Which might be too big of a risk for them. As a car that can drive safely is all they need in the current regulatory framework. Especially when they're the market leader in the west.

If I'm not mistaken you need redundancies in safety systems for level 4-5. At least in the EU. And Tesla has no such backup system, only cameras.

It's already affordable for Waymo. The price of the car doesn't really matter for robotaxis. You make up for the additional cost of hardware in a week of driving. This cost is only important on personal vehicles.

X). Totally sane approach. We will make the parachute bigger until people stop dying. And we start with kites, because they are super cheap to make and we can sell them as full self flying already. But somewhere down the line, we will have a great product. Can you see any differences?

What gets you safely from point A to point B in the next years? Both. What gets you faster from point A to point B in the next years? Tesla.

I work in self driving industry and we can never imagine pitting Waymo and Tesla (with its vision only stack) together. Waymo is far more advanced and safer than Tesla.

Tesla already won

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That's like claiming ice becomes softer as it warms up until it becomes water. There are phase-changes and discontinuities. It may simply be that Waymo is right and Tesla is wrong (i.e. extra sensors are needed to achieve x10 human safety), or it might be the other way around. Or maybe you can reach 10x human safety with cameras only, but you need LIDAR for 1000x human safety. We don't know. It's unexplored territory.

I believe that spinning thing on the roof of the waymo is also lidar, but I don't see a blue dot in the diagram.

Waymo first autonomous car: 2018 Tesla first autonomous car: ???? Waymo fleet size: 700 Tesla fleet size: 0 What do you mean "who will win"?

So Tesla now has 3 cameras atop the windshield? There's still no redundancy elsewhere(?).

Hast du Radar im Kopf?

Does safety really matter with AV? As long as the cars look great, that’s all I care about. Tesla’s cars look great. Who needs more cameras.

Which might be important if they were developing flying cars.

No way Tesla reaches safety with visual only. That’s my take.

Did you know they use the raw photons and do not run the image thru a processor.  Yes HW4 used 5mp cameras.

Having used both Waymo is way better but not as visually appealing. But autopilot from 2 years ago to now is vastly improved. It still does some weird stuff that can be frustrating at times.

Not from the US, how much does a Waymo trip cost compared to let’s say the equivalent trip for an uber?

Just to give my 2cents. Lidar is only better than camera if you encounter an optical illusion on the road, or if it is dark and your lights dont work. So it is a novelty thing to add. Downside to lidar is that the sensor ruins cameras. So if every car on the road has lidar all the cameras will stop working and why then add cameras to a car that has lidar? Maby pending lawsuit that is about to happen as alot of countrys have photoboxes that checks peoples speed as they might be ruined from lidar.

Isn't it a case of cost of hardware versus cost of lawsuits x probability x reputational damage though? (Risk equation.) And companies have largely figured out that with enough money put into marketing, lawsuits and disinformation, they can do mostly anything they want?

The basic definition of level 5 is that it can drive properly without any help from a human whatsoever, even in very unusual situations. I don't know about EU regulations, but a typical redundancy for a camera would be another camera. The EU regulations will inevitably be changed one way or the other once somebody has created the technology. I predict it will become obvious that systems like lidar and radar will only provide minimal benefits, and will be removed from the regulations. Since the technology currently doesn't exist, it's nearly impossible to write perfect regulations for it, because you basically have to predict things that haven't been proven yet. So, it doesn't surprise me that some regulations today may be overly cautious.

I’ve used both (I own a 2025 Model 3 for reference) and I definitely like Waymo better. My issue with FSD and Enhanced Autopilot is the lack of smoothness in traffic as well as the occasional vision blocked warning. Cresting a hill always has me take over so that it won’t slam on the brakes. Regardless of these issues I definitely like what Tesla has done to make things available for its customers vs Waymo only being a taxi. I think it’s not an apples to apples comparison though, since one is a car you can own and the other is a taxi you can only use in certain cities. What I personally don’t like is the reliance on AI vision to make up for not having more sensors on Teslas. In my experience with neural networks, the data is not always consistent or what is expected. I didn’t make it past the 2nd tesla technical round interview though so they definitely know something I don’t about their data validation

You're off-base by focusing on the sensors. Waymo still leans on HD maps and a rule-based, modular architecture, with AI bolted onto each layer. Tesla, by contrast, runs a single vision-only, end-to-end network that’s poised to scale far more easily across new geographies. The real divide isn’t the sensor suite—it’s modular AI versus true end-to-end learning.

If we are looking to replace Human Drivers as quickly as possible with equal but more consistent capabilities, then Tesla is more than right. (Humans only have one "camera" with minimal 3d vision - vision alone with enough intelligence)  If we are looking to have perfect driving from a robot with no chance of failure at any cost and complexity, then Waymo is correct.  As others mentioned, the final solution will likely land somewhere inbetween, but we have gotten this far with highly flawed humans and we will make flawed machines.

Half as much on average, no joke. On average for me it was about $1 per estimated minute of travel time (prepaid so getting stuck in traffic doesn’t keep a meter running like in a taxi). I used them regularly when I lived in Phoenix, AZ and I find them to far safer than moronic uber drivers who browse instragram while driving down the highway at 80mph; which happened more than a handful of times. I’d trust Waymo over uber/lyft any day. People are just incapable of paying attention to the road these days.

Nikola Tesla would be so proud!

I’m a Tesla apologist but I will have to agree with you here

An I the only one who thought Tesla had lidar? I thought that was one of their selling points

Lots of charging stations in the Rockies had wipers given how much dirt gets kicked up while driving I-70

I’d order a ride from Waymo any day over a company that’s willing risk my life to save a buck on sensors.

that depends entirely on the dynamic range of the camera. I have no clue how tesla's cameras fare in that department.

Watch the documentary “Elon Musk: The Real Life Iron Man”. They talk about it on that.

Tesla used to have radar, but they got rid of it. I feel like that will be the standard that eventually reaches consumers across the industry. Cameras and radar, but no lidar.

I think most people don’t have a clue how lidar actually works, which leads to these assumptions that it’s some kind of magic 3d mapping tech that works in any situation. Lidar emits laser pulses that reflect off of objects and then the return time is used to calculate the distance to it. The problem is that the water droplets in rain, fog, and snow interfere with the laser pulses which leads to false positive and false negative object detection.

I’d actually imagine Waymo requires even more compute, because it has cameras and lidar and all sensors require additional processing. Also, 3D scene reconstruction from multiple cameras isn’t really that exotic anymore and strong AI is needed regardless of what sensor suite you use.

The route I take to work daily has a stretch of 2-lane highway and several times a year tree trimmers work to ensure the power lines are clear. Due to the size of the cherry pickers and the very small road shoulders, this requires the road to be shut down to one lane, with traffic controlled by two workers—one at each end of the work area—using signs and hand gestures to alternate groups of cars in both directions through that single lane area. My ‘23 hw4 MYP has been successfully navigating the lane closures, being directed by the workers, using FSD with no interventions since April of 2024. The other day I stopped at an intersection to make a left hand unprotected turn and arrived at the intersection at the same time as another vehicle coming in the opposite direction. The other driver waved at me (the typical “you go ahead” gesture) and as soon as he started waving, my car proceeded through the intersection. Can I say for a fact that in these situations my car was following the hand gestures? No, but the manner in which my car successfully navigated these situations sure made it seem like that’s what it was doing. Fwiw, I have the driving dynamics set to “chill,” and the FSD assertiveness typically set to “chill” or occasionally “standard.”

Totally agree. Why is everyone so convinced this is a sensor problem when it’s clearly an AI problem?

How can you win a race that’s barely even started? Waymo only has 1000 cars on the road. If Tesla succeeds in Austin they can expand and catchup.

LiDAR has the same problems with bright sun as cameras do in situations like that.

There are other costs though too, like lidar will draw more power upping the kWh/mile. And it will require additional compute to process the point cloud data, so likely a more powerful computer. And that computer will also draw more power, again increasing the kWh/mile.

The data advantage is likely not as big as you think. Yes they have access to a huge set but it needs to be sent from the edge to where it can be processed, stored, labeled, added to training data and then incorporated into the model. All of these steps are expensive so my guess is that they are using a fraction of the miles for anything. I also think the customer owned robotaxi model is going to be much smaller and harder than expected at first. The issues with insurance, cleaning, charging and customers desire to have access to the car are all major issues that need to be solved before it'll scale. Just look at the growing pains for Airbnb or Uber.

I enjoy riding in a Waymo, but last so heard is the vehicles were like $200K, a model 3 is less than $40K or a more similar Y is just above $40K I don’t see how we get anything close to a Waymo in mass production.

I can attest to this. I’m allowed on highways and I only use two sensors that need corrective lenses.

Simplify the system is an option but an alternative its reduce the cost of the sensors. Prices have come down already a low way.

The one on the right has Waymo sensors.

Meanwhile Waymo is everywhere in LA driving autonomously while teslas still slam on the brakes in traffic if you move your hands while in autopilot! 🙄smh

I see dinosaur on the right, inevitable demise

Something as valuable as a 24/7 no intervention cash machine that is an auto-taxi can spare an extra 10k of hardware on a vechicle.

In my opinion it just about cost and improving profits. Lidar is more expensive than radar but if Tesla happened to add HD radar or Lidar or both it would achieve it's full autonomous quicker. LiDAR excels in precise 3D mapping, while Radar is better for long-range detection and adverse weather conditions. https://www.yellowscan.com/knowledge/lidar-vs-radar/

Yep until it Hits a Area with low visiblity 😂

or you could say they are doing waymo taxi rides.... ba dum tiss!

The cost of a Camera Setup that can mimic the Focus length of a human eye is probably more expensice than LiDAR?

Can you make a 1500 mile trip using Waymo? I just did with FSD and Hardware 4 on my Model Y. With minimal interference.

Current Waymo is not scalable. Beside expensive sensor which drives the car cost price above 200k$. They don’t make the sensors, not the car, just the software. They need high def. maps, that only can be applied to major cities. No highway or normal roads. So they can’t expand all over the world. It will take them years or decades to fulfil that gap. They only can produce a small amount of cars. A couple of thousand / year. Tesla produces about 2 million a year, with all Full Self driving hardware automatically included. In China people show Tesla with video’s on narrow dirty gravel roads in the mountains, with deep dangers valleys. And everything’s works so far without trouble. How is Waymo is going to handle this, if a road suddenly changes after route construction?

I don’t see how the sensor setup directly translates to reliability. If anything, even Teslas have more sensors than a human, what with the four added cameras on the sides of the car and one more on the back. Humans have to rely on grimy mirrors to get a distance-altering perspective of what those cameras see.

Yes, one of the recent updates.

Seems Waymo has more options to work with. Also, Waymo has thousands of vehicles on the road and working autonomously. I see them as far ahead and prodding along in progress. Full disclosure, I own a Tesla Model 3 and use Waymo as an option to Uber.

Bro watches Marquez Brownlee

Bro I was 100% gonna elaborate, but figured it would get too wordy

Might want to stay away from any gambling in the future. 😂 Just a friendly jest. Guess there are more rational ppl here than we both expected.

This just triggered me from that time I did a “7-minute abs” program. 🤦🏼‍♂️

Never underestimate the power of a high profile crash. Ask Uber. Ask Cruise. Pricing isn‘t driven by cost.

I think the extra hardware on the waymo is so it can drive on its own

Right? I was going to say “yeah but a Tesla should have non-CV sensors too…” But their answer is far better

Wow, you're correct! Man I'm really glad Tesla has those spacecraft engineers now... [White House Announcement: President Trump Signs Executive Orders on Drones, Flying Cars, and Supersonics](https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/06/president-trump-signs-executive-orders-on-drones-flying-cars-and-supersonics/)

Not comparable. Waymo is not selling consumer cars and they’ve successfully been operating a robotaxi service. Tesla is a consumer vehicle and hasn’t proven it can be a robotaxi company. Apples and oranges.

Was there recently can confirm

Nope my Tesla drives me and my passengers. I just sit back and watch, it’s like I have my teenager driving for me and I’m in the passenger seat watching. Same thing. Still drives me and my passengers, even if I’m watching it.

I live in SF, own a tesla, and take waymos a lot. The current Waymo are great and i fully trust it, compared to whenever i turn on tesla FSD i feel ok on highways and less then 5 minutes in the city before i give up. These are not comparable products at this point. I will say early waymo was not as robust, but the improvement has been great. I think tesla severely handicapped themselves by going only camera.

This reminds me of server uptime guarantee. 99.9% vs 99.999%. I'm sure Tesla is amazing 99.9% of the time. However at large enough scale, the difference between the two becomes hard to ignore. Also the cost of adverse event can be catastrophic.

What about the RobotTaxis is Austin, are they missing the extra sensors?

LIDAR and camera combo is more complicated for sure but I’d argue driving a car autonomously is harder than landing a spaceship on the same pad in the weather conditions you choose.

Goated take

One can drive on highways, the other not.

Also have the mapping strategies that differ as well. Pre-map vs map as it goes.

Sorry meant radar.   From Google  21, favoring its camera-based Autopilot system, Tesla Vision. However, radar returned in 2023 with the Hardware 4.0 (HW4.0) update for the Model S and Model X. It's unclear which other models will receive the new radar. Here's a summary of Tesla's relationship with radar:

This is the smartest take I think I’ve ever heard in this debate

Curious, where did you get the numbers on the cost of sensors on waymo? InGaAs LiDAR looks real interesting, seems like someone has already invested in it lol

Lidar costs are under $1000 ea, if produced in Mio of quantities. Someone just needs to commit themselves, and build a sw stack around the HW, which no big carmaker was successfully doing yet. MB, BMW, Rivian (thus VW) are on it, the rest are still on paper. Meanwhile Chinese oems are already deploying mass produced vehicles with self driving and lidar. Check on Hesai cost and prevalence.

It's no point cloud, it's a render based on 2D images. If SW hallucinates, you hit something.

Actually this is kinda false that more sensors means more computing power. One example is Vision only systems need a lot of compute to determine distance whereas lidar inherently gives you the distance value so you actually save compute by having a direct measurement. This is true for most specific sensors

Isn't the whole point to give it better vision than humans and additional redundancy though

Which makes sense. If you’re going for vision only, the data quality is worse so you need more robust AI

The real difference between the Tesla and the Waymo is where the human responsible for the car’s tricky situations is located, and how often he needs to be engaged.

Tesla has proven time and time again that…. That it takes too many features out and later learns to regret it. The customers in particular regret this minimalization. Radar , USS, turn signal stock, improper detectors for auto wipers, the list goes on. I drive a Model 3 and know this … lol.

My 2024 tesla m3 standard auto pilot has trouble choosing a lane when markings on the highway are a bit faded — FSD so far has been full of problems It’s great that there’s less cameras- but does it WORK? None of this matters if the damn car crashes into things

Waymo has a "safety first" philosophy which I think drives the approach of having lots of sensors / data and then removing them over time. Basically approach the optimal design from the side of extra safety. Telsa has more of a "scale first" philosophy which drives the approach of having sensors in every vehicle collecting data that will inform the algorithm / model. It strikes me that Waymo is making it work in 4 cities and could scale to 100 using their method. 100 metros would cover 2/3 of the US population. It's possible that Tesla's bet will be cheaper at scale but it's not yet clear that it works even in one city. Seems like a risky bet to me. But then that's how Musk has operated in all his businesses...take risky bets that others won't.

Great reply. Thanks for your thoughts.

Think Tesla being cost effective will win in the long run. I crash with a jaguar is $$$$$ IN COSTS. While tesla is cheaply replaced.

I use vision, I drive, no accidents. Tesla sees way more than I do. The rest is all software.

They've said that's something they're open to in the long term. Seems like they'll probably just wait until they're in enough markets for it to make sense as a consumer product (good luck convincing Ford to partner with you to sell to consumers if you're only in five cities).

LIDAR is not trivial either. All of those spinning laser sources can break

💯

Diagram of the Tesla isn't even right. The taxi has 2 in windshield, one on bumper.

When it comes to training models, the most important aspect is relevant, good data. Sure tesla has way more cars on the road, but the data that those cars generate might not contribute to improving the self driving model. If you break down the snippets of time Tesla drivers use fsd in between manual driving, you might find the scenarios when fsd is used is overlapping, people might use it more often on highways or easier stretches of road. Whereas for waymo, every second that car is on the road that data is relevant to improving the model because none of it is human supervised and assisted.

It's not like tech has ever evolved to be smaller and sleeker

As do all human related accidents

That's cool and all but pilots have eyes too, so why do they need computers to help land planes?

The same reason we've stopped using paper and pencil to solve math problems

Waymo is leading the r&d, with tech it's inevitable that it'll become cheaper to produce

That's a dumb argument, humans have legs, why do we need cars to move. Humans have brains, why do we need computers to compute.

So.....no blindspots then

You do realize computer "vision" isn't the same as your eye vision right

The more the data the better. Tesla fails bc they dont have LiDAR

Humans can drive with 2 cameras powering one view. It’s not that hard to get it right with 8 cameras and 360 visibility

It is two eyes, but note they can move in all directions, then you head, which moves in any direction. Also, you hear sound too. Completely agree, it is an AI problem, but many cameras are required in all directions. Hope Tesla’s 10 cameras are sufficient. I also think Tesla is on the right direction. The problem is way too complex. They have driven some terms from autopilot, but this is way more complex than flying planes autonomously.

It has to be safer for sure. Part of needing many sensors is also that they're static and always on vs a human head that maximizes two sensors on a mobile head by turning left and right all the time to look around.

I understand why Tesla is going vision only but I personally feel like for full self driving it should have all 3 (camera lidar and radar) just too help cover all bases