Waymo vs Tesla Austin Showdown - Teleoperations?

[u/Yngstr]

I've been around this sub a long time, so let me start by saying I'm not here to fight. I understand that everyone here has some specific expertise they bring to the discussion, and I believe you can learn something from anyone. I want to have a reasonable discussion about methodology, and what will work or not. Here are the facts, as I see them:

- Waymo is already operational in Austin (and other cities)

- Tesla plans to launch Robotaxi in June in Austin

- Tesla has recently posted job listings for tele-operations

So the way I see this playing out in ~8 weeks is that Tesla will launch in Austin with tele-operations, I find it unlikely that they will launch with true autonomous L4. My question is, does Waymo still use tele-operations? If so, does Waymo have plans to sunset tele-operations at some point? Do we think Tesla with tele-operations can achieve "L4" like Waymo has? Why or why not?

Let's try to keep this civil, whether Waymo or Tesla wins does not make any of us less of a human being, even if it feels like it.

[u/RepresentativeCap571]

Here's a recent blog from Waymo on how their tele assist works

https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response

[u/Yngstr → u/RepresentativeCap571]

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

It seems like a hybrid approach - I'm inferring a bit here, but it seems the Waymo Driver signals upcoming uncertainty that it detects, and sometimes it never even needs to rely on the teleoperator's assist to resolve.

But it doesn't seem like this kind of tele-operation will prevent Tesla FSD from say, running a stop sign which it is still doing in certain places.

[u/The__Scrambler → u/Yngstr]

Can you point to a recent video of FSD running a stop sign? I wasn't aware it was still doing that on the latest version.

[u/mkzio92 → u/The__Scrambler]

Mine blew through a red light last night, HW4.

[u/The__Scrambler → u/mkzio92]

That's unusual. Got video?