There's no real discussion to be had on any of this. Just people coming in to confirm their biases.
As for me, I'm happy to make and take bets on Tesla beating Waymo. I've heard all these arguments a million times. Bet some money
I'm not a camera only doomer, and expect that in ten years Waymo will also not use Lidar, or that the units will be incredibly cheap and well integrated.
But I think the pro Tesla camp is exaggerating how quickly the march of 9s will happen for them, and underestimating and how quickly Waymo will expand in the next few years.
There's a reason Long Now uses this format, and I'm happy to use their platform and pay the fee: https://longbets.org/rules/
Email is reitzensteinm@gmail.com if you're interested.
Heard this for a decade now, but I’m sure this year will be different!
For instance, Would you like to bet 1000 dollars Tesla has more unsupervised self driving robotaxis than Waymo at the start of 2027?
So let's use a metric that unequivocally shows who is 'winning'. I'm confident Waymo will have more paid rides per week than Tesla at the start of 2027 (I'll give you 2028 if you want). No other metric indicates scale better than passenger trips. If you have more robotaxis or you are in more cities, it will show up in the trip count.
I'll give $1000 to a charity of your choosing if Tesla beats Waymo in this metric. Fully unsupervised trips only, does not include trips with a safety driver or a monitor in a passenger seat, none of the usual games they like to play.
I would also love to see every car brand have full autonomous driving. It seems like you think you must be in one camp or another, and that one has to "beat" the other - but that's not true. Both can be successful - wouldn't that be a great world?
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/91491273/waymo-vehicle-hit-a-chi....