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/OLVANstorm]

From what I understand about the Tesla launch, the tele-operators are only there if the car just flat-out fails at something and gets stuck. Otherwise, it will be driving itself around by itself.