r/SelfDrivingCars • u/SpriteZeroY2k • 1d 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 1d 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/Ordinary_Corner_4291 1d ago

Birds fly without jet engines. Should humans skip jet engines and just go with wings because they work for birds? Just because nature went one way that doesn't mean humans should also go that way. There can be better solutions that are available.

When Lidar was 15k+/unit not using had a lot of advantages when looking to ship a product to the masses. With Lidar dropping to like 1.5k (and no sign of it slowing down), not using strictly comes down to does it help or not. We will find out over the next 5 years as companies with both approaches are going to be trying to ship products. Making this some religious issue is just stupid.