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| Smooth, cool dude Tesla > carbuncled Waymo |
Haven’t heard of Waymo?
It’s a driverless taxi. Currently operating in a number of cities in the U.S. and expanding. It’s owned by Google. Deep pockets. So how could it go wrong?
Answer: by being the car version of Kodak, which stuck by 35mm film when digital was the go. By being the car version of Blockbuster when Netflix was the go. By being the car version of a flip phone when iPhone was the go. By sticking with multiple sensors when cameras and a brain are the go.
Waymo has got too many sensors. Not just cameras, but Lidar, Radar… gaydar and sonar…. Heh!
They make the car look like a warty carbuncle. All these sensors and systems don’t make the nav better and safer. They make it more complex and more often conflicting. Which is the opposite of what the naysayers, the Elon-haters have been saying for years. And now have to eat crow. Elon was right all along. And Waymo was wrong all along.
Tesla has cameras and a brain. Like humans with our two eyes and a brain. As @brivael notes:
Sébastien Loeb throws a 208 T16 at 180 kph down a muddy Corsican path in the rain with zero LIDAR. Two eyes, one brain. Evolution gave predators eyes for 500 million years, not lasers. There's a reason.LIDAR is the equivalent of Marxism applied to the economy. More…
Elon commented on @brivael’s post:
“People oddly assumed that I didn’t understand LiDAR, even though I oversaw the custom LiDAR development that Dragon uses to dock with the Space Station.”
In short: I confidently predict that Waymo will fail. If not in a year, then within five. And that Tesla with its FSD will dominate the driverless market. Which will be, per the cartoon above, a tsunami. A good tsunami! Getting around will be easier, safer, more efficient, better for the environment, and … cheaper!
And it will be so for everyone. As the Chinese say, for 男女老少, Nánnǚ lǎoshào, for Men and Women, for Young and Old.
