They literally sell a package to purchasers of cars called full self driving and autopilot. They claim their competitive advantage is all the cameras of miles driven. They put special boards in cars for it. They absolutely consider themselves a player.
Let me clarify my position: Tesla does not advance self-driving research, and they don't need to. Tesla won't be the first to release fully self-driving cars. (I think 'SAE levels' are bunk, but let's say this is level 4.5 for the sake of discussion.)
EDIT: Sorry, and to clarify, I meant "not a player in self-driving research. I also do not think anyone has any vehicles we should call "self driving".
(I'll keep the rest of my pre-edit clarification below.)
To clarify further:
Tesla's offerings come from applying and engineering existing published research. That takes work, and they're making some money from that.
To the extent that "fully self driving" is an achievable goal, it makes no sense to expect Tesla to make the advances that get us there, when (1) they aren't doing that, and (2) they don't need to do that to make money.
To make this even more clear, let's make it concrete with one plausible future: In 2032, Waymo (or Didi, whoever) achieves true 'level 4' fully-self driving with proprietary technology. Their tech is seen in trucks, busses, taxis, as well as being equipped to a few thousand private vehicles. The safety stats are superhuman, and insuring such a vehicle is cheap.
In this future, Tesla Motors would like to enter into an exclusive partnership to integrate this technology into the cars they manufacture.
Literally making their own AI training chips with novel architecture doesn’t count as participating in research?
Google has tried and failed at commercializing similar technology in other verticals (like building environmental automation from their DC tech). The reason is actual incumbents (rightly) see the value of their position while Google comes at it as “our AI is the value, you just make dumb things”.
I expect the automakers to ship mediocre stacks that are put together by existing players like Bosch.
As an ex-Googler I would be floored if Waymo actually lands a sell-into deal with an automaker. A fully vertical taxi service is their path today because they tried and failed to sign any partnerships.
Announcing partnerships is the easiest thing to do. The proof is in the pudding. Right now Waymo is paying carmakers for the vehicles, not the other way around.
Quoting you:
> To make this even more clear, let's make it concrete with one plausible future: In 2032, Waymo (or Didi, whoever) achieves true 'level 4' fully-self driving with proprietary technology. Their tech is seen in trucks, busses, taxis, as well as being equipped to a few thousand private vehicles.
I see no possibility where existing large automakers will let Google (Waymo) own the FSD stack (and thus own the data and huge piece of value chain) and be relegated to a mere maker of a dumb car.
And if GM is not going to buy Waymo tech, Tesla will definitely not.
To be clear, (1) we are discussing a hypothetical about the future, where things are different than how they are today, and (2) the hypothetical is only a clarification and the further argument does not rely on it.
So, I still have difficulty reading your comment and extracting a meaningful point from it. Any reply to you would be regurgitating things that have already been said.
More importantly, I've been trying to interpret your comments as made in good faith, but I don't think you're arguing with the contiguity of the thread in mind. It really seems like you're here to defend Tesla, and that "Tesla might buy Waymo tech" might sound like an insult to Tesla? (To this extent, I'm worried this might actually be another proxy Musk argument, which I really have no interest in.)
With all this, out of courtesy, I don't get HN notifications and I won't be navigating back to this comment thread to check for further replies.
Don't get me wrong: Trawling the floodhose of AI publications, taking them together, and synthesizing them into a coherent and useful tool is serious, difficult, and creative work. This is R&D, and the people at Tesla working on autopilot are smart. The rift between "publication ready" work and "commercial ready" work is a vast one.
R&D for commercialization is a very difficult and very profitable task! But one would not expect this to advance the field of autonomous vehicles, nor would it require participating in the research.
(Also, I thought Waymo had partnerships, but I'm not close to Google. I don't know a lot about Waymo as a business, only as a research entity.)
> Tesla won't be the first to release fully self-driving cars.
Technically speaking: yes, they were the first ones, back in 2017.
Their car might've been more likely to crash then actually end up at the desired destination, but they did release first with a pretty hilariously bad product.
I don't think anyone is doubting that Tesla considers themselves to be a player, especially since it sells more add-ons to their cars. Repeatedly publicly knocking the benefits of LIDAR in self driving demonstrates otherwise.
They clearly are a player in the self-driving cars market. They may not be a player in self-driving research. These things can both be true at the same time.
I think that's the distinction driving the confusion here.
Maybe it depends on how you define "full" self-driving. Is it full if it works only for the scenarios it was designed? Are you working full time if you only work 30 hours a week?
