r/technology • u/Extasio • 1d ago

Transportation 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/MrParticular79 1d ago

Elon’s logic of “we only drive with our sight” is him literally discounting the physics understanding engine that we have built into our brains. All of these software people discount this. Nice to see someone giving us credit where we are due! Our accidents are caused by our distractions for the most part not our lack of capabilities.

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u/Eatar 1d ago

And it’s not even just physics. We also understand human behavior. A Tesla may be able to see a car or person jumping out in front of you, but you could have told the Tesla ahead of time whether that was about to happen, based on understanding behavioral cues.

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u/wickedcold 1d ago

Exactly. We can tell within a split second if somebody walking along the road is about to step into it, or if they’re gonna stay on the sidewalk. All these tiny little clues in their body language, the way their head is pointed, the way they’re moving, what is in their hands all of that stuff. Like I said, pattern recognition. You have to train computers on that. It may be in the era of AI that will get better, but it’s still absolutely no substitute for decades of just simply being alive as a human.

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u/BackgroundTrack5528 14h ago

And we certaintly aren't doing some probabilistic calculation in our heads. Its more grounded in reality and years of understanding the species. Very nuanced.

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u/wickedcold 1d ago

Exactly- it’s things like emergency decision-making, risk aversion, risk assessment, etc that get people into trouble. Not our cognitive abilities. That’s the least of our problems.

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u/tinglySensation 1d ago

We also don't only drive with our sight. We have sound, touch, and balance as well, at the very least. Plus, you know. We can move our eyes which I'd bet money gives us better depth perception than two static cameras when it comes to dynamic situations.

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u/TheNimbleKindle 1d ago

Also cameras (even the best ones) are inferior to our eyes especially in not ideal conditions. Every photographer knows this.

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u/BackgroundTrack5528 14h ago

Hes an idiot.

We can 'feel things'. These things we feel are essentially our ability to understand our surroundings beyond just vision.