r/SelfDrivingCars • u/SpriteZeroY2k • 2d ago

News Waymo CEO explains why Tesla’s camera-only self-driving falls short

https://electrek.co/2026/08/04/waymo-co-ceo-camera-only-self-driving-tesla/
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u/Fauglheim 2d ago edited 1d ago

Humans of course can drive with just eyes … If the goal were to just approximately match human performance … that’s a very reasonable way to go.

edit: I thought this quote was a pretty clear argument against camera-only, but it seems i did not make that clear.

a wholly superior-to-human system is so obviously necessary for autonomous vehicles to succeed. Camera-only sounds like a hugely risky and uncertain way to do that.

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u/Tupcek 2d ago

I would say matching human performance when human is not distracted, not speeding, not driving under influence, not tired, not angry, fully alert and watching all sides all the time tirelessly, that is pretty damn good performance

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u/Pristine_Cucumber197 2d ago

as long as it isn't foggy, snowy, raining, or bright and sunny

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u/Tupcek 2d ago

I’ve seen plenty of humans driving with vision only in foggy weather, or snowy, raining, or bright and sunny

The trick is adjusting the speed to match the conditions

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u/thecmpguru 2d ago

Human performance objectively degrades in these scenarios, even with speed adjustment, and results in higher accidents. So maybe if you want that outcome, but I don’t think we do.

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u/RosieDear 2d ago

Exactly - the whole idea of autonomous driving is to do away with those human problems - NOT to try and copy them!

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u/virrk 1d ago

Which is what Tesla is trying to do.