[Mawr]

> and frankly at parity with Waymo in the autonomy space.

Waymos have been driving around autonomously for years; meanwhile Tesla taxis have a human in the car ready to activate a kill switch at all times. Therefore, your statement is objectively false.

EDIT: Oops, this isn't quite correct anymore — as of two days ago, in a geofenced area of Austin, Tesla has moved the safety person to a follower car: https://xcancel.com/JoeTegtmeyer/status/2014410572226322794#....

[lern_too_spel]

It's a stunt. If they believed it worked, they wouldn't need somebody dedicated to monitoring it for the entire time it's on the road. Having nobody in the car looks cool, but there is nothing different about the car's self driving capability, and the economics are even worse than having the safety driver in the car.

[ajross]

It's no different on a technical level than Waymo using remote operators. Presumably Tesla just hasn't wired that up, or doesn't plan to.

FWIW, your logic works better the other way around anyway: if the system didn't work, there would be easily-accessible proof to that effect showing the resulting hilarity as the operator needed to step in. There isn't.

And... of course there isn't. Because FSD is real and works and it drives a ton of us around every day. Is it possible that there are failure modes? Of course. Thus the safety personnel. But the bar of "if they believed it worked" was crossed years ago. Yes, it works. Duh. Go to a dealer and get a test drive if you don't believe people on the internet.

[lern_too_spel]

> It's no different....

Waymo doesn't have one or more operators dedicated to each vehicle for the entire time it is on the road. That is massively different. The latest disengagement data for FSD 14 shows that Tesla is still behind where Waymo was more than a decade ago.

[array_key_first]

No it's entirely different on a technical level, because waymos always drive themselves. The human operators don't drive, and in fact can't, they can only make decisions that the car then executes.

Waymos are autonomous vehicles, Tesla has some vehicles which may operate autonomously in certain circumstances. There's a big difference.

[ajross]

Waymo's operators can absolutely control the vehicles directly. I'm not sure what you're trying to cite here. The only effective difference in architecture here is where, physically, the backup operator sits.

I know it's upsetting to think that someone you hate has a good product, but... they do. Arguing on the internet isn't rolling back the launch.

[array_key_first]

They can't, they don't have a steering wheel or remote controller or anything. And this is supported by the fact that waymos are actually level 4 autonomous, and Tesla's are not.

This has nothing to do with Elon musk. From a purely technical standpoint, no - Tesla DOES NOT have autonomous vehicles to the level of their competitors. It's not a matter of opinion.