It didn’t take long for Elon Musk to respond to Waymo CEO John Krafcik’s comments on Autopilot, with the Tesla CEO taking to Twitter to say “to my surprise, Tesla has better AI hardware and software than Waymo (money).”
The reply highlights the amount of funding that Waymo has received from investors outside its parent company Alphabet, which is a subsidiary of Google. Last year, the autonomous driving technology development company managed to raise USD2.25 billion in March, followed by an additional USD750 million in May for a total of USD3 billion.
Waymo has partnerships with several manufacturers to integrate its technology, including with Daimler AG, the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volvo.
The company also operates a robotaxi service called Waymo One in Phoenix, Arizona, and is currently testing Waymo Via, an autonomous driving solution for moving goods. Meanwhile, Tesla’s R&D budget from 2017 to 2019 were routinely over USD1.3 billion, although all that money is channelled to a variety of areas and not just autonomous driving systems.
To my surprise, Tesla has better AI hardware & software than Waymo (money)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2021
Waymo’s funding initiative was brought up by Krafcik in his interview with Germany’s Manager Magazin, where he said that the company’s vehicles would cost “no more than a moderately equipped Mercedes-Benz S-Class,” Forbes reports. The S-Class in the United States is priced around USD100,000, while Tesla vehicles start at USD35,000 and are equipped with hardware that will support future self-driving capabilities.
In the same interview, Krafcik also said that Tesla isn’t a competitor in the field of self-driving vehicles, noting that the company is “developing a really good driver-assistance system” instead. Since then, Waymo has provided clarification on its CEO’s comments, which were paraphrased from a much lengthier statement.
As posted by Forbes, the full transcript of the interview includes Krafcik’s more detailed comments on Autopilot and its accompanying Full Self-Driving Capability (FSD) features, which still requires the driver to be ready to take over the steering wheel at all times.
“Tesla is a car company making a really good driver assist system. And I think Tesla does a really good job in their legal statements warning the drivers of those cars to pay attention, to keep their hands on the steering wheel, and reminding the human driver that they’re the ones in control of the car. So, no, Tesla is not a competitor at all. They’re a car company making a driver assist system. We’re a company making a fully autonomous driver,” said Krafcik at the time.
“One thing we do believe is that it’s a discontinuous step function between a driver assist system and a fully autonomous system. So, the idea that you can just someday magically leap from one to another is a big leap of judgement and faith,” he continued.
“Again, just based on the experience we’ve had, understanding what’s required from a sensing and perception standpoint compared to the sort of capabilities that are in the very basic and rudimentary driver assist systems that we see on the road today – it’s orders of magnitude difference in terms of sensor capabilities and sensor robustness.”
“And that’s just the first (step), right. After sensing and perception comes the really hard part of predicting the movement of all of the agents on the road in front of you and then planning your path around those agents. That takes massive, massive skills and massive capabilities in AI and machine learning competencies. I think it’s something that we’re very, very well suited for and are quite good at. I think it’s challenging for others to have that capability and also be good at making cars,” Krafcik adds.
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All that money and tech and yet their so called self driving model S which was advertised to have “autopilot” still can’t drive itself 9 years after the car was introduced. A glorified cruise control and nothing more.
Why should anyone believe what Elon has to say?
Depends on how one defines autopilot. Even our planes autopilot system ended killing everyone onboard over the last decade as pilots took forgranted of the software and you’re talking about a 300 million plane as opposed to a 35k car.
At the end of the day the driver is responsible for the car and not the car itself. If anything Elon has launched rockets and satellites into space to help setup the world’s largest internet network system, what have you contributed to our nation in return?
First of all, planes don’t have to deal with drunk drivers, pedestrians, pets, kids running into the road, road works etc. Autopilots on planes have information on other plane’s whereabouts & the number of times it has failed is almost nonexistent.
Secondly, Auto+pilot means self driving, that is what Tesla advertised and that was what folks expected. You literally just contradicted your own statement. You mentioned how advanced the system is and yet the end of the day driver is responsible? So what’s the point? It is a beta software, no other car company would ever do this because they don’t want to be held liable for unintentionally killing people. Tesla gets a pass because people are so gullible. Also Elon doesn’t launch rockets and satellites, he pays a group of scientists to do all the work. He is a business man, nothing more.
Find it hilarious you felt the need to compare me to him. So tell us then what have you contributed to our nation? So eager to know.
Non-existent? B737 MAX comes to mind…
Have you watch the current fsd beta video on YouTube that Tesla release to selected beta tester. It’s miles ahead of anything waymo have right now. Waymo only can operate on small area that have been map by their system unlike Tesla that can drive and tested everywhere.
You shouldn’t believe him. Now you can go back to sleep or return to your 9-5 job while Elon and his team could get their ass back to the production floor to polish their software and for the future of human nation
Future of human nation? Say whaattt?! Haha far from it, he is just another businessman with plenty of money to throw into new ventures. Call him ‘Steve Jobs’ of automotive world, but even Steve Jobs did not revolutionise communication or how we communicate with one another. He is no Tesla(irony), or Edison, or Da Vinci, far from it.
Toyota said Tesla is not a real car maker. From Elon’s reply on what constitutes a car, they all might be right. A car is more than just hardware and software, a real car has soul but Elon still couldn’t figure out how to inject soul into his soulless machines.
Wealthy businessmen & their companies try to make machines think & function like humans, but they push their employees to work & think like machines…