So the article repeats, several times, “waymo relies on remote operators”. I don’t think the author knows what “self-driving” means.
I’m generally the one defending Tesla in these threads but on Waymo’s defence; the remote operators aren’t actually controlling the car. Instead when faced with a challenging situation the car “calls home” for assistance basically asking a human to take a look at the situation and help it to decide what to do. This might be a car partially blocking the lane of traffic cones placed in a weird manner so the car justs asks for assurance that it’s okay to proceed. In the most difficult situations the remote operator can suggest a route for the vehicle to take but the decision on what to do is ultimately on the vehicle itself.
The author is very well aware of this dilemma, in fact that topic is the center of his article, and he is making some good points about why real autonomous driving might still take a long time until achieved.
Besides that the cars are constantly getting around without a designated driver. For the technology and for the industry that is a huge breakthrough.
And he forgets to mention the precise mapping required too. He also left out the terrible experiences Waymo has had with revoked permits, cars disabled by traffic cones, and multiple traffic stopping glitches where intersections were blocked for hours.
The author addresses this.
He notes Tesla drivers are expected to be able to intervene at any time. Both companies rely on human intervention. But his argument is Tesla doesn’t have the infrastructure to learn from all its data with the accuracy necessary to account for edge cases, which are mortally important for safety.
Tesla, per the author, will need to go through exactly the staging Waymo is doing to move to driverless, but is years behind. That’s the argument.
