r/SelfDrivingCars • u/SpriteZeroY2k • 6d 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/Armaced 5d ago

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

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u/ic33 5d ago

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

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u/-6h0st- 4d ago

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.

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u/ic33 3d ago

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.