Comment by bjrobz
2 days ago
I saw a Waymo in Seattle, today. If Waymo can get Seattle right, that gives me a lot of confidence that their stack is very capable of difficult road conditions.
Note: I have not had the pleasure of riding in one yet, but from what my friend in SJ says, it’s very convenient and confidence-inspiring.
I have had the pleasure of riding a few times in SanFrancisco.
The drive was delightful and felt really safe. It handled the SF terrain, traffic and mixed traffic like trams very well.
I wouldnt trust a self driving tesla ( or any camera only systems) though!
I took the Waymo from San Jose airport to home on the peninsula. It took the 101 highway back for the most part, driving very conservatively at 65-55 mph, and in the right most lane. It still has a few quirks though. When there aren't any cars around it will speed up to 65 mph, but at on-ramps, it will slow down to 55 and then speed up once past. It will get stuck behind slow drivers being in the right most lane and patiently follow them a few car length behind them. On the plus side, the lidar stack field of view as shown on the internal display seems to see pretty far down the highway.
Tesla doesnt have Lidar?
No. They don't even have radar, camera is all you need, as per Elon.
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hooboy, https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
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Why wouldn't you trust a Telsa, millions of people let there Tesla drive them all over USA (not geofences like Waymo) without touching the wheel from parking spot to parking spot everyday. Have you tried it?
Maybe because of the multiple investigations Tesla has currently due to crashes, deaths, injuries, etc. all caused by "whoops our cameras were fooled by some glare/fog and accelerated into a truck/pole"
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> Why wouldn't you trust a Telsa, millions of people let there Tesla drive them all over USA (not geofences like Waymo)
I own a Tesla and paid about $10K for the full self driving capability a few years ago. Yeah, I would not trust a Tesla to drive me from airport to my house. There is a reason Tesla is still stuck at level 2 autonomy certification and not 3, 4 or 5.
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Because it is not real autonomous driving? Being liable for software that you can neither verify nor trust is THE dealbreaker. Once Tesla says "We are liable for all accidents with FSD" with higher level autonomous driving this game changes. But Waymo is just way more reliable.
> millions of people let there Tesla drive them all over USA
There aren't a million Teslas with FSD active in the US. According to Tesla in their latest earnings report there are 1.1 million people worldwide with FSD.
Seattle probably isn't any harder than SF, other than the occasional weather event where the hills ice over and we get a bunch of funny (and scary) videos.