A Zoox executive shared some choice words about Tesla’s fully self-driving (FSD) software just as the Amazon-owned company begins rolling out its first driverless ride-hailing vehicles in two U.S. cities.
In an interview at Wednesday’s Tech Crunch Disrupt conference, Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson said unsupervised FSD could be seen in some of the company’s vehicles as early as next year. This cast doubt on Tesla’s recent claims that there is. Asked whether regulatory issues or technology issues are bigger challenges for Tesla on its path to robotaxis, Levenson claimed that Tesla currently “doesn’t have the technology that works.” .
“The more fundamental problem is that they don’t have the technology that works,” Levinson said of Tesla’s FSD. “And by functionality, I drive most of the time with driver assistance systems (which require you to take over driving, except when you’re not driving) and ones that are so reliable and robust that they don’t require you to drive.” We want to differentiate between the system and the people within it.”
The executive also stressed that he doesn’t believe Tesla’s camera-based FSD is ill-equipped to adequately protect people’s safety, saying that he doesn’t think Tesla’s camera-based FSD is adequately equipped to properly protect people’s safety, and that he doesn’t believe Tesla’s camera-based FSD is adequately equipped to properly protect people’s safety, and that he doesn’t believe that Tesla’s camera-based FSDs are ill-equipped to adequately protect people’s safety. “It can lead to a sense of complacency,” he said. .
“In our view, building a robotaxi that is not only as safe as humans, but especially safer than humans, would actually require far more hardware than Tesla has in its vehicles. ,” Levinson added.
Elon Musk went on to respond to the story, highlighting the fact that Zoox wouldn’t exist today if Amazon hadn’t bailed it out.
If he hadn’t been bailed out by Amazon, his company would have already folded.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2024
Read Levinson’s full interview below. Tesla’s FSD question comes a little over 21 minutes later.
Tesla’s FSD Supervised, Cybercab, and Competitors
Earlier this month, Tesla held its “We, Robot” event and unveiled its two-seater, fully autonomous CyberCab platform. The platform is scheduled to go into mass production by 2027. Teslati was one of the participants at the event and one of the first to ride. Cybercab coverage can be found here on X.
Tesla owners already have access to FSD Supervised by paying a monthly subscription or purchasing the software with their vehicle, but the company is offering ride-hailing services for vehicle owners, as well as fully unsupervised services. You have not yet rolled out your software offering. Tesla said during the event that Model 3 and Model Y owners will have access to unsupervised FSD in California and Texas by next year, and that it will roll out the software to the Cybertruck, Model S, and Model X soon after.
Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo has already begun deploying driverless ride-hailing vehicles in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and Zoox announced plans this month to bring fully driverless robotaxis to San Francisco and Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Cruise, a self-driving company owned by General Motors Co. (GM), is trying to resume paid rides after facing legal troubles and staff restructuring following an accident with a pedestrian last October.
Still, Tesla has always said its technology is more scalable than those of other companies because the software is trained by the many drivers who use it in their cars. The company also touts that its software’s neural networks are trained on vast amounts of real-world driving footage, rather than specific commands in geofenced operational areas, allowing it to predict surrounding scenarios. They claim it can be handled better.
Investment in Tesla’s self-driving program expected to exceed $10 billion this year, Musk says
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