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Following my latest article on the long-running Waymo vs. Tesla FSD debate, a few readers tore into me (and Tesla) a little bit. One comment jumped out at me as a really important and interesting point, and then another did, and then another. So, I’m publishing them here for more attention and discussion.
Redundancy vs. …
Reader “fm123” wrote: “The biggest issue is the lack of redundancy in the Tesla system. They designed it to be low cost, but that means leaving out redundant features for safety. Waymo has separate steering and braking control even if the car drivetrain fails. There is also a separate battery system for the driver computer, so it should remain operational even if the car electrical system fails. That’s in addition to the sensor redundancy and washer/wipers for cameras. Sensors that physically detect objects and measure speed and dimensions/distance on top of camera AI systems is better for poor lighting conditions.”
This is a very important point. As long as everything is working as it’s supposed to, especially the cameras, Tesla FSD performs exceptionally well. But, if Tesla is going to soon set cars loose without human supervisors (something that’s hotly debated), when something goes wrong with the system, what happens from not having a backup system? Yes, the car can decide that it can’t operate properly and stop driving, or perhaps pull over quickly and stop driving. But that could create quite a few problems. Tesla fans like to criticize Waymo for having more hardware and being more expensive on that end, but there is something to be said for greater redundancy and backup in such a critical machine.
Incentivized Too Much?
Reader “Michael” wrote: “Humans tend to react to the incentives put on them. The concerning thing for me about Tesla’s autonomy efforts is that from Musk on down, everyone at Tesla is well aware that their sky-high stock price is based on the promise of autonomous driving, and if their investors cease believing in Tesla becoming the dominant provider of autonomous driving, the stock price will plummet, and wipe out a huge amount of Tesla employee’s net worth. As such, I don’t trust them to prioritize the safety of the public above all else. My lack of faith is exacerbated by the way Tesla does everything possible to hide their safety data. Their latest crash report out of Austin is redacted to the point of absurdity. Particularly with Waymo accelerating its expansion, we’re at risk of Tesla throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to prove to investors that they cannot be written off as a competitor.”
Adding onto the first point above, this seems critical. When there’s so much incentive to getting robotaxis deployed last month rather than 3 years from now, are corners being cut, are people being overly positive about the results, are data being hidden or manipulated, are steps being skipped in order to look even with or about to surpass Waymo? How many Tesla employees have shares of the company that they know are based heavily on rapid, significant FSD progress? Perhaps problems related to this strong incentivization aren’t even evident yet, but will be in a year or two as more robotaxis are deployed.
Crowdsourced FSD Data Is Not Uplifting
Reader “Phil11” adds the following:
“Do you not believe the crowdsourced data from the Tesla FSD tracker?
“If you simply use that data to calculate what would happen if Waymo used the latest FSD (14.2.1) to travel its 2 Million+ miles a week, it would crash about 4,000 times a week and require about 57,000 human interventions which is neither practical or safe.
“The above numbers proves that Tesla FSD is not remotely close to ever being autonomous and yet you continue to pretend that the proven liar — like traitor trump — deserves a wait and see every time he lies to pump his stock.”
Yikes! Yes, if these numbers are even close to representative, you can’t look at the data and assume Tesla FSD is ready for mass deployment. And it’s wild to imagine what the response would be if Tesla robotaxis did drive more than 2 million miles a week and get into ~4,000 accidents in that time.
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