How much of the Tesla failure to catch up with Waymo in self-driving is because of a Elon-dictated limitation on the tools and technologies they can use? Elon threw out a lot of the "R" part of R&D and said "just develop this approach I chose."

The critiques of Tesla self-driving are not saying it isn't a hard problem, they are the:

* Elon acts like it's an easier problem than it is in terms of constraining how his company approaches it

* Elon ALSO acts like it's an easier problem than it is in terms of his claims about when it will be done, in a way that offers potential harm to purchasers and investors

It's hard to say he's "trying his best" to be honest about the timelines when they've slipped this many times.