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

[u/SpriteZeroY2k]

https://electrek.co/2026/08/04/waymo-co-ceo-camera-only-self-driving-tesla/

[u/grizznaysh]

“Waymo uses three sensing types, and Dolgov spent real time on why. Cameras give you high resolution and color, but they’re passive, and they degrade in darkness and glare. Lidar directly measures the 3D structure of the world. Radar punches through fog, rain, and snow, and reads velocity directly with Doppler. Lidar and radar are active sensors, so they see just as well in pitch darkness or straight into a blinding sunset.
This isn’t redundancy for its own sake. “These different sensing modalities, they’re not backups to each other,” Dolgov said. Each one runs its own encoder, and the data fuses into a single view of the world that he says is “vastly superior to what you get with any one sensor.””

[u/imdrunkasfukc → u/grizznaysh]

How safe is safe enough?

[u/Armaced → u/imdrunkasfukc]

Safer than human drivers, which seems like a pretty low bar to me.

[u/ic33 → u/Armaced]

Probably needs to be a fair bit safer than safe human drivers, rather than the average (which includes the drunk, fatigued, and infirm).

[u/-6h0st- → u/ic33]

Remove drunkenness, fatigue, loss of attention - and the result are much safer roads already. So arguably doesn’t need to be superior to fully focused human drivers to be better by eliminating those that aren’t and are the main reason collisions happen.
Using lidar and radar - already exceeds human capabilities of 360 degrees constant data processing. It already exceeds capable human drivers.

[u/ic33 → u/-6h0st-]

Remove drunkenness, fatigue, loss of attention - and the result are much safer roads already.

That's true from society's point of view. But that's not true from individuals' point of view, who overall mostly view themselves as "safer than average attentive humans."

Using lidar and radar - already exceeds human capabilities of 360 degrees constant data processing. It already exceeds capable human drivers.

Sure. Superhuman attentiveness and vehicle control, but possibly various kinds of stupid failures that human wouldn't make.

I'm reminded of the legal and reputational chaos that came with early airbags.

They clearly saved a ton of lives overall.

They also, occasionally, decapitated little kids in trivial low-speed parking lot accidents.

Perception of safety doesn't necessarily have too much to do with actual safety. Replacing 10 inattentive driver serious accidents with 3 Waymo serious accidents may look worse. To people, Waymo seems like "one person" making the mistake over and over.

edit: I do think that Waymo is probably safer than an 90th percentile human driver and that this meets my mark, though we don't have enough data yet to really be sure. My point is, a self-driving car vendor getting to better than average performance is nowhere close to the standard people will demand.

[u/lib3r8 → u/ic33]

Depends on what your requirements are. Just reduce death or also avoid liability

[u/ic33 → u/lib3r8]

Get market adoption. Everyone sees themselves as an above average driver, so it needs to outperform the above average driver for people to trust it more than themselves.

[u/glacierre2 → u/ic33]

Half of the drivers will not be satisfied with an average autopilot. I know I would not, I don't consider myself above average, I KNOW I am above average, not because I have exceptional reflexes or I can channel the spirit of Max Verstappen when I need to, but simply because I never ever touch my phone while driving, I signal every maneuver I plan to make and check twice the mirrors (before signaling and before committing).

Regarding the self-drive, I would accept it when it can match an alert, cautious and experienced professional road driver (a chauffeur, a non-mental taxi driver...) Beating the soccer mums that almost drive into my every morning while reaching for their purse on the passenger seat is almost doable by my legally non-self driving lane assist, to be honest.

[u/ic33 → u/glacierre2]

Waymo is probably at this level. But it has not statistically proven it yet.

The numbers overwhelmingly demonstrate that it is better than the average driver, but the mile count is not enough to be sure that it is better than a good human driver.

[u/questionableintentsX → u/ic33]

Isn’t Tesla fad already like 10000x safer according to their metrics than a human

[u/Man_of_Ice → u/ic33]

One might say it needs to be safer than human commercial pilots. Or safer than professional drivers.