They are making money with a technology that is neither self driving nor autonomous. It's driver-assist, which places it in the same category as navigation or cruise control.
If you compare Tesla to the other companies working on self driving, the only meaningful milestone where Tesla leads is the number of fatalities. The reason why Cruise and Waymo have not been as aggressive as Tesla in rolling out features to the general public is caution.
When it comes to gauging self-driving progress the most meaningful metric to look at is progress towards regulatory approval in more markets. It doesn't matter how _capable_ they are, if they can't demonstrate to regulators that they're able to safely operate then they won't be in the market. Tesla needs to step up and start making progress towards legally operating actual self-driving vehicles.
The point is that Tesla is making money, with the people they have heir to do the work and have a path towards self-driving that is not inherently money losing.
Saying that having a single car that is approved for self driving in a single geographic are is far more advanced then millions of cars that can drive with incredibly advanced driver assists literally all over the world is just an incredibly terrible way to measure progress towards the eventual full solution.
Its simply not a way of measuring progress that I is reasonable.
> aggressive as Tesla in rolling out features to the general public is caution
Its because they have a technology platform that simply can't be sold commercially as they are specialized vehicles. Plus these are not system that have been developed to work with a driver, its simply a totally different process of development.
If you compare Tesla to the other companies working on self driving, the only meaningful milestone where Tesla leads is the number of fatalities. The reason why Cruise and Waymo have not been as aggressive as Tesla in rolling out features to the general public is caution.
When it comes to gauging self-driving progress the most meaningful metric to look at is progress towards regulatory approval in more markets. It doesn't matter how _capable_ they are, if they can't demonstrate to regulators that they're able to safely operate then they won't be in the market. Tesla needs to step up and start making progress towards legally operating actual self-driving vehicles.