Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to X (previously Twitter) this morning to dismiss Waymo’s progress in autonomous driving, claiming that the Alphabet-owned firm “by no means actually had an opportunity in opposition to Tesla” and that this shall be “apparent in hindsight.”
The remark got here as a direct response to a dialogue about Waymo’s newly launched security information—a degree of transparency that Tesla has but to match.
The change began when Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean identified the huge disparity in validated autonomous mileage between the 2 corporations. Dean famous that Tesla doesn’t have “wherever close to the quantity of rider-only autonomous miles that Waymo has,” citing Waymo’s recent milestone of 100 million rider-only miles.
Musk, who has promised a fleet of “1 million robotaxis” by the tip of 2020 (a deadline that handed 5 years in the past), responded along with his normal bravado:
“Waymo by no means actually had an opportunity in opposition to Tesla. This shall be apparent in hindsight.”
Actually, Tesla has zero Robotaxi miles with rider-only as its service nonetheless has in-car security supervisors. Regardless of the security drivers stopping an untold variety of accidents, Tesla has a a lot increased accident fee with its supervised robotaxis than Waymo or common human drivers.
Even with this worrying scenario, Musk stated yesterday that Tesla plans to take away the security drivers within the Austin Robotaxi inside 3 weeks.
Musk’s remark is especially ill-timed given the context. Waymo simply launched a large tranche of security information overlaying its operations throughout San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin.
The information present that Waymo’s Driver avoids crashes at a fee considerably higher than human drivers, with a 91% discount in severe injury-causing crashes in comparison with human benchmarks.
In the meantime, Tesla has but to deploy a single automobile with out supervision for a business trip and even share wherever close to the quantity of information Waymo shares..
Whereas Tesla repeatedly releases a “security report”, it was broadly criticized by security specialists for being an “apples-to-oranges” comparability. Tesla’s report relied on airbag deployments as a proxy for crashes and lacked the granular damage information that Waymo supplied. Moreover, Tesla’s information covers a system that’s supervised by a human 100% of the time, making it inconceivable to isolate the security efficiency of the software program itself.
Tesla frames the information as proving “FSD is healthier than human drivers”, however in reality, for those who take the information, it faces worth; it solely compares “FSD with human supervision to human drivers.”
Electrek’s Take
I discover it more and more troublesome to reconcile Elon’s statements with actuality. Waymo is presently working absolutely driverless business companies in a number of main cities. Tesla remains to be testing a Degree 2 driver-assist system that requires fixed human consideration.
Apple and oranges.
We’re taking a look at two corporations. One has almost 100 million miles of documented, driverless driving with particular, printed security information displaying it’s safer than people. The opposite has zero driverless miles, imprecise security stories that depend on proxies like airbag deployments, and a CEO who has been promising “subsequent 12 months” for a decade.
For Elon to take a look at Waymo, which is presently working the precise service Tesla has been attempting to construct for years, and say they “by no means had an opportunity” is baffling.
To place it in phrases {that a} racing fanatic like Elon may perceive: He thinks Tesla is main the race as a result of he can see Waymo in his rear-view mirror. What he doesn’t notice is that he isn’t forward; he’s truly being lapped.
When a automobile is a full lap forward of you, it seems behind you on the observe. However that doesn’t imply you’re successful.
I perceive that he believes that Tesla’s cheaper system will allow it to scale sooner as soon as it solves unsupervised self-driving, however there’s merely no proof of that.
If Tesla removes the security drivers from its fleet in three weeks, as Musk claims, which is a giant if, it’s going to formally be about 5 years behind Waymo and can nonetheless have to show security with no supervisor after which scale.
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