

The entire rhetoric relies on the idea that self driving road cars are
- Feasible
- Desirable over rail or bus
Tesla’s failed efforts have proven time and time again that the road is full of unexpected and arbitrary inaccuracies, ambiguities and risks that cannot be assessed by a machine alone. They’ve also been sued in multiple markets on claims of false advertising because autopilot is not, in fact, autopilot.
They don’t even have the best system in the industry, that would be Drive Pilot, a Level 3 autonomous assist system by Mercedes-Benz. The only systems to have level 4 are taxis that only operate in limited areas, on limited, known routes, and they are well known for being very easily confused and blocking emergency vehicles.
To be fair, I’ve never stepped into a Waymo, but from what I’ve heard they’re sent on pre-determined paths around a delimited area. These only seem to be feasible you can either strictly control your environment or adjust for a finite number of cases, such as a delimited area, and even that isn’t working too hot for other road users.
I still don’t see the advantage versus a taxi bus.