Tesla’s number one relaunched the challenge on X by stating that Waymo’s self-driving car “never had a real chance against Tesla”. But is it really like that?
In the midst of a heated debate on autonomous driving, Elon Musk relaunched the challenge on X by stating that Waymo ‘never had a real chance against Tesla’arguing that this statement will be “obvious in hindsight.” The statement came in response to a post by Jeff Dean, Chief Scientist of Google DeepMind, which highlighted the abysmal disparity in the data collected. In fact, Waymo recently reached the milestone of 100 million kilometers traveled in completely autonomous modewithout a driver on board. Tesla, on the other hand, still doesn’t have any kilometers under its belt in the mode driverless without human supervision.
waymo vs tesla
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Dean pointed out that, compared to Waymo, Tesla is still far from having developed a significant database of “pure” autonomous drivingreiterating how the kilometers traveled with active supervision by a driver cannot be put on the same level. Elon Musk reacted to Dean’s “provocation” with his usual assertive tone, relaunching an optimistic vision of the FSD system (Full Self-Driving) of Tesla, but the facts tell a completely different story. Musk’s promised Robotaxi program, with one million autonomous vehicles on the road by the end of 2020, never got underway.
musk provokes, but the facts deny it
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Currently Tesla continues to operate in Sae Level 2 modeor with the obligation of supervision by the driver; on the contrary, Waymo is active with fully autonomous robotaxi services in several US cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin. To strengthen the gap, there is the recent publication by Waymo of a substantial collection of data relating to the security of its system. According to the Google-controlled company there is one 91% reduction in accidents with serious injuries compared to traditional human driving. Tesla safety reports, by contrast, have been repeatedly criticized by experts as relying on airbag deployment as the primary indicator, without detailing the types of crashes or physical consequences.
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Musk launches ‘real’ self-driving service?
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Musk recently announced that within three weeks Tesla will eliminate safety drivers from its Robotaxi service in Austin: this would mark a change of pace. While Waymo has been working on a fully-fledged driving system for years driverless and continues to share detailed data with institutions and researchers, Tesla is still in the testing phase. The numbers are eloquent: zero kilometers without a driver for Tesla, against 100 million for Waymo. The latter is focused on safety, scientific verification of data and prudent implementation. Tesla, on the other hand, has chosen a more aggressive path, based on self-learning, but with less transparency.
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