Oct 10th is put up or shut up day for Elon Musk.
At 9 minutes into the video they discuss “Time between critical disengagements” – the benchmark regulators use to judge if you’re ready for primetime as a robotaxi.
It’s 17,000 miles for Waymo, 170 miles for Tesla FSD. Oops!
intercst
Wildly non-comparable. There have been threads here and on the premium Tesla thread at length. Very unclear what Waymo counts as a disengagement, even though it is clear they are phoning home much more than that. Also unclear for Tesla since disengagement can be triggered by either FSD or the operator and the latter can be frivolous. We just don’t have the data.
What’s clear is that Waymo has a license and authorization in several jurisdictions to operate commercial, fare-paying robotaxi services, and Tesla does not.
That’s a pretty big hurdle for Tesla to overcome.
intercst
Not a hurdle, but a difference in strategy. Waymo is content to be geo-fenced and phone home frequently in order to run an actual taxi business. Telsa’s goal is to be able to run anywhere with no phone home and thus has no need to do the license thing until a license is needed.
If you’re running a fare-paying business, you need a license.
Tesla’s “strategy” to date is a lot of hand waving and unmet promises going back about a decade.
intercst
But, you don’t need a license for what Tesla is doing currently. Maybe we will hear more Thursday.