Waymo founder sees Tesla more advanced in self-driving tech

Waymo Co-founder, Anthony Levandowski said that Tesla has a big advantage in self-driving technology compared to its rivals.

Levandowski says the EV company has maximum data access from millions of on-road vehicles. Features such as auto parking and lane-switching are the few examples he referenced for advanced machine learning.

He said Tesla cars continuously generate data and important information to improve the self-driving system.

In 2009, Levandowski co-founded Google’s self-driving project Project Chauffeur, which was later renamed Waymo. It is one of the two autonomous ride-hailing service providers in the US alongside Cruise.

Levandowski mentioned Tesla is fetching millions of times more data than Waymo. This is a key differentiation between the two firms.

The EV maker uses Full Self Driving (FSD) tech to autonomously drive vehicles. This tech has helped the company to create a ground and provide a semi-autonomous driving experience for customers.

Despite promises of a fully autonomous future, FSD (currently) requires a human to supervise a car’s maneuvers. However, the tech demonstrated at a recent Cybercab unveiling event is said to be fully autonomous.

Demo ride videos revealed the new vehicle won’t feature a steering wheel or paddle. It has a flat floor with plenty of legroom for two passengers and a large front display to show instructions and provide entertainment.

The Cybercab drove autonomously through the demo area from start to finish.

Unlike Waymo, which relies on LiDar sensors for real-time mapping, Tesla uses cameras to take live feed and process it to self-drive vehicles.

It is forging ahead with a new AI cluster to refine all captured Self-driving data to train the system and improve its self-driving technology. Tesla will release its fully autonomous driving services starting next year and Cybercab somewhere in 2026 or 2027.

(source)