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Comment by rapsey | Hacker News Reader

Waymos drive in limited geofenced zones. FSD exists but needs driver supervision. Both are incomplete and it is unknown who will be the winner.

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But isn't it the case that Waymos are actually usable (for this purpose), while FSD/RoboTaxi isn't?

Geofencing sounds like a good idea to me. It's a mean to roll things out carefully, while minimizing risk of death. If actual FSD/Robotaxi is ever released, I suspect that they'll need to geofence, too, for a while.

FSD is also geofenced, just a bigger fence. When/if the robotaxi actually debuts it too will be heavily geofenced and have usage restrictions but it will also be several years behind Waymo in terms of development, testing, technology and regulation.

Whilst it is unknown who will be the winner, or even valid competitors, we can predict with high confidence that Tesla has a massive challenge to reach where Waymo is today.

The people living in the "geofenced" areas don't care about how "incomplete" it is. The point of a self driving taxi is that you don't have to own the vehicle.

And this is a vast difference. You can expand a self-driving taxi service by running an Uber-like service and dispatching w/safety-drivers for journeys taking you out of the area, and its functionally equivalent - people are buying the mobility, not the self-driving. You get to start rolling out without solving the whole problem.

The geofence can extend. Drivers are harder to replace.

Have been seeing both the LA and SF Waymo operating zones increase steadily. Also seen Waymo's being driven manually outside of those ranges presumably for further development.

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