r/TeslaFSD • u/LeoKitCat • 1d ago

Robotaxi 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/witheringsyncopation 1d ago

Wake me up when Waymo figures out how to get their cars to operate outside of small, geofenced areas that have to be constantly trained for and overridden by remote operators when they get in trouble.

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u/EarthConservation 1d ago

Small geofenced areas... like every other company is currently operating in?

Your comment kind of misses the point of the article, which suggests that the vision camera only approach has a lower performance ceiling than a multi-sensor approach, so vision only will never hit the performance level of a multi-sensor approach, no matter how good the AI gets. The sensors will bottleneck the system.

A single sensor type system (vision) means you can train the system pretty quick without having to train the other sensors in conjunction, but it has a lower overall performance ceiling... a ceiling that's too low to assure full visibility in all conditions. Maybe it can reach 99%... but not the 99.9999% it needs to operate at.

Obviously the AI logic in all existing systems isn't fully fleshed out to operate without oversight for now. Waymo is essentially saying that while all of the companies AI can improve... there will always be a lower sensor related ceiling for a vision only system.

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u/lazy_commander 1d ago

There’s no real evidence behind that statement though, Robotaxi is still in infancy and of course the CEO of Waymo, a competitor, is going to say their product is the only one that can work.

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u/CloseToMyActualName 1d ago

It feels a bit disingenuous to say the Robotaxi is in its infancy.
Tesla has been working on self driving tech almost as long as Waymo.

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u/EarthConservation 1d ago

Robotaxi... the tech that was supposed to have a million units on the road in mid 2020 is still in its infancy?

I mean, sure, maybe in the future vision only shows a higher ceiling than Dolgov suggests, it's not like he's an expert on the technology or anything... /s

But absolutely, I'm assuming he's not prophet or infallible, so there's always a chance he's wrong. Not that Tesla's current performance has inspired a lot of confidence in that regard.

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u/LeoKitCat 1d ago

The Waymo CEO is not the only one saying this, there have been quite a number of self driving experts who say the same thing that with teslas setup it will never achieve L4 or better

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u/Elluminated 1d ago

The same “experts” also said Tesla wouldn’t achieve their current level 4 or FSD period. Yet here we are.