Actually I think Waymo is too cautious. Tesla has thousands of customers effectively acting as test drivers for their autonomous software, which allows them to collect data at a much faster rate and discover more 'edge cases' than with a more cautious test environment.

33,000 people die each year on US roads and self driving cars offer the chance to dramatically reduce that figure over time. The more aggressively we can test self-driving software now, the faster the software can be improved.

So as long as the accident rate for autonomous Teslas is initially no more than for human drivers, the Tesla approach will lead to fewer deaths in the long run.