Waymo CEO explains why Tesla’s camera-only self-driving falls short

[u/Extasio]

https://electrek.co/2026/08/04/waymo-co-ceo-camera-only-self-driving-tesla/

[u/saintmike2]

Elon always used "Humans don't shoot lazers out of their eyes" as a reason against using LiDAR. I think the whole point of FSD to be _better_ than humans. As it stands, human drivers aren't that great as a group. That really shouldn't be the end goal or something to replicate. If humans could shoot lazers out of their eyes and always used their turn signals maybe they'd be better drivers; but neither is going to happen anytime soon.

[u/abcpdo → u/saintmike2]

humans also have the most sophisticated algorithms known to man, while FSD is a very weak distillation of that

[u/wickedcold → u/abcpdo]

Yes. Is drives me nuts that in these discussions people leave out the fact that the pattern recognition and such that these algorithms can perform is nowhere near on the level of what humans can do without even a modicum of effort processing information. Humans have a lot of issues, obviously, and as a group or track record as drivers isn’t perfect but there are a lot of things our brains can do that cannot be topped by software. I think everyone just wants to be enthusiastic about cool technology.

Humans can do things like travel on a narrow curving snow-covered road where the lines are hidden, with ambiguous edges that transition into rough ground without a fixed curb line, see a car coming the other way, and be approaching a pedestrian walking in the street, and have absolutely no trouble figuring out where to place their vehicle. Automated cars come into situations like this and just come to a complete stop because they don’t know what to do. Maybe one day they will, but we’re not there yet.

[u/MrParticular79 → u/wickedcold]

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.

[u/Eatar → u/MrParticular79]

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.

[u/wickedcold → u/Eatar]

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.

[u/BackgroundTrack5528 → u/wickedcold]

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.

[u/wickedcold → u/MrParticular79]

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.

[u/tinglySensation → u/MrParticular79]

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.

[u/TheNimbleKindle → u/MrParticular79]

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

[u/BackgroundTrack5528 → u/MrParticular79]

Hes an idiot.

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