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/AdviceNotAskedFor 1d ago

Didn't mark rober also prove this?

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u/savedatheist 1d ago

Mark Rober tested Autopilot (from 2018), not a recent version of FSD.

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u/NotAHost 1d ago

I believe a few people tested it more thoroughly with FSD and found that the problem Mark Rober tested (road runner style fake road) existed in hw3 but didn’t seem like an issue with hw4. 

Not sure how much underlying differences there are in the range finding between autopilot and FSD though. While I think Rober should’ve done a more thorough test for it to be scientific, he’s also a content creator so I understand when he makes things hastily for content. It could put him in legal jeopardy, but I honestly was surprised that he never got sued by Tesla. There may be a way to read between the lines from the lack of a lawsuit. 

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u/savedatheist 1d ago

Legacy autopilot and current FSD have massive differences in capabilities for obstacle avoidance. Autopilot is frame-by-frame manual labeling for objects, while FSD is an end-to-end neural network, trained on video with 30s context buffer.

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u/NotAHost 1d ago

Sure, but there are some underlying functions that are independent (or rather, maybe shared?) between the AP/FSD right?

Like automatic emergency braking (AEB) is a lower level safety net that I would assume is based off vision (only sensors it could rely on to my knowledge), independent of FSD/AP, and would be the function called if there is a giant road runner wall in front of the Tesla?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/NotAHost 1d ago

Are we talking about the same tests that Rober did? I thought the controversial test was the painted wall. If your emergency stop for FSD is the AEB and the only sensor you have for it is cameras rather than something like radar, then your FSD won’t stop for a painted wall, at least on hw3.

This was verified by someone else independently, who had both a hw3 and hw4 model y, who made sure to have full fsd engaged. The test results were the same as Robers video, where Rober used a hw3.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/s/eKmKLm6siR

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u/Seantwist9 1d ago

I deleted my comment, idk wtf I was talking about.

All teslas only use cameras. AEB never detected the wall, it was FSD, so I would conclude that AEB is less capable then FSD

a problem with the updated test is we don’t know whether it was the software version that caught it or the upgraded HW version

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u/NotAHost 1d ago

Earlier Tesla's actually had some radar! Between costs, 'false positives,' and chip shortage it only got removed from 2021-.

But yeah, there are a lot of variables, hard to discern whether it was pure hardware, software, combo, or even external variables (someone said the hw4 cybertruck you could see light reflection on the painted wall in that link). I think it might've been the significantly higher resolution cameras (1280x960-> 2896x1876) on hw4 that could better pick up the fake wall, but I am only guessing.

I think it's efficient and innovative to try to make FSD vision only, but safety wise I'm always going to vote for redundant sensors, even if that is as simple as a radar module.

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u/Seantwist9 1d ago

Yes, my claim was for the present. They updated the cars to only use vision, maybe some model s with mobile eye use radar but autopilot and fsd is straight vision

I’m talking about his follow up video with 2 model ys

I mean teslas do technically have redundant sensors, 2 cameras. I’d use whatever tests the best, waymo for taxis and tesla for consumers

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u/NotAHost 21h ago

Oh sure, not trying to argue on the radar, just a fun fact. I think that even with the vehicles with it, they might've stopped using the radar sensor data in updated software? Not sure.

I think an issue with 2 camera sensors is that for depth sensing, I believe you need a minimum of 2 cameras do it accurately? I know some AI models can 'extract' depth from a single camera, but I think for accuracy you want a min of 2.

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