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Comment by robertlagrant | Hacker News Reader

I haven't seen Waymo videos for a few years, but can they do things on highways the way Teslas can? I've only seen a couple of around-town videos, so I don't know.

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Mercedes and BMW are offering driver assistance you can buy today that is more advanced than Tesla on the freeway. Tesla is in no way a leader in automated driving.

Sorry - I don't see how either of those sentences is relevant.

Apparently yes now: https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/8/24029932/waymo-driverless-...

Interesting! I don't know loads about self driving cars, but my understanding was that Tesla's self driving has done a lot of freeway miles, and not just in a small simple area.

"Tesla miles" are also a misleading metric because they don't factor in all the times the driver has to take back control over the vehicle to ensure safe operation, it's just the sum of arbitrary stretches of self driving that don't represent true autonomous operation.

I agree it's not the same, but that's sort of my point. Tesla's gone for global usage, with automatic deactivation, whereas Waymo has done a very specific area of roads built in a similar style. It's broad vs deep, is what I mean.

> whereas Waymo has done a very specific area of roads built in a similar style

How are steep and hilly roads of San Francisco similar in style to flat, grid-like roads of Phoenix?

Well, for example if you drive in Europe you'll see much narrower roads, way more pedestrians and crossings; all sorts of things.

Right, so what you really mean is urban vs highway driving. In self driving, urban driving is considered much more challenging precisely because of the characteristics you listed. That's why you see Waymo only now dipping into highway driving because the primary taxi market is all inside busy cities.

> Right, so what you really mean is urban vs highway driving

No, I don't mean that.

Then I’m afraid you’re unclear because the cities Waymo operates in all have different characteristics and don’t have “similar style of roads”. Driving in SF is very different from driving in Phoenix.

Waymo is currently doing a huge amount of testing on the freeway. But also, Waymo is fully autonomous in the entirety of San Francisco (and a few other cities). Its not just an assist program that you have to keep your eyes on, its a legit full self driving system, leagues above Tesla's.

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