GoKawiilis transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.
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As Tesla gears up for the official launch of its steering wheel and pedal-less Cybercabs, Waymo is issuing a stark warning about Elon Musk’s approach autonomous driving.
Srikanth Thirumalai, Waymo’s VP of Onboard Software, doesn’t specifically call out Musk or Tesla in a blog post, published Wednesday, entitled “10 AI Lessons from Driving 200+ Million Fully Autonomous Miles.” But his intention is clear: Tesla’s system is insufficient to the task of fully autonomous driving.
“Cameras are incredible, but they aren’t enough,” Thirumalai writes. “For years, there’s been a debate over whether cameras alone could solve full autonomy. Now, after more than 200 million real-world miles, the data is clear: safe, fully autonomous operations at scale require more.” Waymo uses cameras, in addition to lidar and radar, to create “a rich, redundant world view that no single sensor can replicate,” he adds.
Musk, of course, would beg to differ. The occasional trillionaire has over the years made his distaste for lidar widely known, calling the laser-based sensor “a crutch” and predicting that any company relying on the powerful but expensive tech is “doomed.” The crux of his argument is that humans make driving decisions primarily through the use of their eyes, so why not autonomous vehicles?
In recent months, Tesla has doubled down on this position. In a recent earnings call, Tesla’s head of AI Ashok Elluswamy ripped into other companies who have adopted a multi-sensor approach. “Historically, the so-called experts have always claimed that you need lidars, radars, HD maps, and the entire kitchen sink to drive safely,” he said. “Here we show that such is not true. You can have safe, comfortable, and affordable autonomy with just cameras. This record should be a huge validation of Tesla’s entire AI approach.”
Of course, Tesla is mostly alone in this position. The vast majority of AV operators, from Waymo to Zoox to Motional, use lidar, in addition to radar and camera, as part of their on-board suite of sensors. They believe that autonomous vehicles need to be better than humans with regard to their perception systems, which requires a redundant multi-sensor approach. If one sensor fails, the vehicle wouldn’t be fully blinded as other sensors can help guide it to safety.
Tesla’s camera-only approach could shut it out of certain markets, depending on how certain policy debates turn out. New Jersey’s state legislature is currently considering a bill that would legalize robotaxis, but only if they include multiple sensors. Tesla would be banned under such a law.
Thirumalai goes on to outline other differences between Waymo and Tesla. While Musk thinks the use of high-detail maps to help chart an autonomous vehicle’s course is “a really bad idea,” Waymo believes that HD maps are a powerful “prior.” Waymo uses HD maps to “jump-start our validation process, so we can provide a fully autonomous service to riders from our first trip,” Thirumalai says. “As we drive, we treat our maps as another input — like our sensors, but acting as a mental memory.”
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