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  • Yeah Waymo has been silently ticking away over here for years. On the east side they are all over the place. It will take longer to get to freeway speeds but I think Waymo's approach is far safer. But fuck Google too

  • Chess is a very complex rules game, while Checkers is quite simple. Waymo has a complex approach to self driving:

    • Expensive suite of sensors
    • High resolution maps of operating areas
    • Remote operators standing by

    While Teslas approach is simple:

    • Capture a bazillion miles of camera footage, feed into AI, profit?
    • Unpaid volunteers teach the AI safe driving
    • Car has only a basic map for routing, the rest is inferred in real time from cameras

    Waymo’s successful approach scales linearly. They have to high-res map every city they want to operate in, and they can gradually bring down the cost of the sensors. They will require fewer remote operator interactions over time.

    Teslas success is more difficult, but it scales exponentially. They already produce vehicles at scale and full control over all the equipment on board. The existing fleet would be able to participate as well. If they succeed, they may want to offer buy-backs for customers who didnt buy FSD - the cars would be worth more to Tesla than the owner.

    In both checkers and chess, the player gains super powers for reaching the other side of the board. Time will tell who reaches the other side of the board first. They are playing different games on the same board. Okay that’s fair.

  • Comparing Tesla with Waymo is stupid. They are doing fundamentally different things, and people like this author don't realize that. Waymo's technology, like a few self-driving products from Ford or GM, rely on having a centimeter level 3D scan of the road ahead of time. This allows a crap ton of pre-processing so fewer decisions need to be made in the car. It's a developmental shortcut, but it also means their cars will only work on roads that have been scanned and processed and approved ahead of time. Tesla's system doesn't pre scan roads. It makes all the decisions on the fly based solely on what the car is seeing as it drives. That means that it can theoretically work on any road, in any situation, without advance preparation.

    Tesla's approach tackles a MUCH harder problem. And that must be considered when comparing the two technologies.

    Otherwise it's like looking at two people at the gym, William lifts 25lb weights and can now lift them 10 times, Tom lifts 250 lb weights and can now lift them 9 times, and saying that William is in better shape than Tom because he can do more reps. No, Tom is in better shape because he is lifting a lot more weight. Even though he can't lift it as many times, he's doing a lot more work in his workout.

120 comments