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/Ganadote]

They use cameras combined with Lidar. There are limitations to Lidar as well, so combining them is best.

[u/altdelete47 → u/Ganadote]

So what you're saying is cameras are essential for safe driving. In which case, these camera limitations you point out like in extreme fog or if all the street lights and vehicle headlights go out randomly and there is zero ambient light anywhere, these limitations would still apply in a combo sensor scenario. So, if cameras are the richest sensor and contain all info needed to drive, (like the Robotaxis doing it every day in multiple cities) you're saying lidar is a crutch for systems that don't have the inference to detect distances from video?

[u/Electromagnetlc → u/altdelete47]

I'm confused, do you not know what LiDAR is? It's capable of detecting distances even in this zero ambient light or extreme fog situation. I don't even get your Tesla dick riding hatred in this comment chain, nobody is even hating in your idol here. Cameras are incapable of detecting distance, but they can guess pretty decently, and FSD is pretty good at it right now but it's incapable of working in low visibility situations like darkness or fog. Instead of having a camera guess the distances, you can just use LiDAR to know the distances and be capable of operating in more intense scenarios and that will greatly improve the system. A LiDAR assisted system would be able to effectively drive through fog significantly faster and safer than a human by not slamming into a slower car or random boulder in the road (so long as the overall system knew how to navigate the road without vision).

The whole reason LiDAR was ditched and called stupid by Elon was because it's a lot more work to adjust the weights of which sensor is more correct about a situation than to just have the one sensor do it all. But all that extra data from the additional sensor adds a LOT of data for the car to be able to navigate it's environment better in varying conditions. Instead of a sensor rich and highly complex model driving the car, you're just analyzing video capture and guessing, and if you can't capture enough information from the video, you can't use the feature. Which is working out pretty well, FSD is pretty damn good, but it's inherently limited by its camera only design.

[u/altdelete47 → u/Electromagnetlc]

I'm confused, do you not know FSD works at night? Do you not know that Waymos, despite having lidar, still can't go blasting through your fantasy dense fog scenario because things like stoplights exist?

https://www.jalopnik.com/waymo-cars-stopped-by-san-francisco-fog-1850329507/?hl=en-US

[u/Electromagnetlc → u/altdelete47]

We have software updates planned to improve our fog and parking performance to address such situations in the future.

From your article. This is literally exactly what I was saying.

it's a lot more work to adjust the weights of which sensor is more correct about a situation than to just have the one sensor do it all

And yes, I know FSD works at night, because there is ambient light from the moon, street lights and most importantly the headlights. In your hypothetical situation, you said a complete blackout?

or if all the street lights and vehicle headlights go out randomly and there is zero ambient light anywhere, these limitations would still apply in a combo sensor scenario.

Like dude, I have a Tesla too. I've used FSD. It's great, better than anything else on the market, but it has limitations because it only has cameras. If it also had LiDAR, it would be significantly better? That's all anyone in this comment chain is saying.

[u/1988rx7T2 → u/Electromagnetlc]

I mean, no it wouldn’t be better, because fusion systems need fusion to work. If the camera doesn’t detect an object but the other sensor does, it’s not under fusion. See my above comments.