The Tesla Cybercab Future Is Here, It’s Called Waymo
- by Forbes
- Oct 13, 2024
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The Tesla Cybercab won’t arrive until 2026. But Waymo’s driverless service is here today.
Tesla here and now — FSD: But let’s back up for a minute and address what Tesla is offering here and now. With a Model Y or Model 3 or Cybertruck — or any Tesla — you can get Tesla’s Supervised Full Self Driving, aka FSD, for $99 a month. It is not full autonomy, however. FSD requires intervention, i.e., you have to take back control of the car — sometimes frequently, sometimes not so frequently. But in either case, it’s Level 2 autonomy. That is, you never completely surrender control of the car.
That said, Tesla’s FSD is the most advanced U.S. driver assist platform out there right now because it can handle complex urban scenarios. FSD can drive you from, let’s say, your home, down local streets, through complex intersections, and to a local store with minimal driver intervention. Other driver assist platforms cannot do that. They’re meant to be used on highways to, for example, take the tedium out of long-distance highway driving. In other words, FSD is designed to be used practically anywhere. The other platforms are not (currently).
(As some quick background, I used Tesla’s FSD 12.5.X in a Model Y as recently as this week. I’ve recently used General Motors Super Cruise Gen 2 in a 2024 Cadillac Lyriq, Rivian’s Highway Assist in an R1s, and Ford’s Bluecruise in a 2024 Mustang Mach-E GT. All for at least one week. These are all Level 2.)
Waymo: While Tesla’s vision of the Cybercab at the We, Robot event in Burbank was impressive, ironically, right down the street in Hollywood, any attendee could hail a Waymo and experience that future now. I have (I live in Los Angeles). Like the future Cybercab, Waymo offers full driverless autonomy, or Level 4 autonomy. I recently took a 30 minute drive in a Waymo driverless vehicle in Beverly Hills and it was amazing. It was rush hour traffic in downtown Beverly Hills (south of Santa Monica Blvd) and Waymo had to negotiate some very complex scenarios. It did so with aplomb. And I’ll repeat what many Waymo passengers have said: Despite the fact that there was no (human) driver, I had complete confidence in the Waymo Jaguar I-PACE and never felt at risk or unsafe. The only downside to Waymo is that it’s geofenced, i.e., it is only available in a geographically bounded part of Los Angeles. (I would love to be able to take Waymo to LAX but currently that’s not possible.)
Conclusion: Seeing the reaction on social media to the Tesla We, Robot event, I’m guessing a lot of people would buy a Cybercab today if it was available. And maybe even more would buy a Cybercab-like vehicle if it had a couple more seats and a steering wheel and pedals. Especially if it was under $30,000. But that appears to be a pretty distant future. For now, there is FSD available on all Tesla vehicles. While FSD is very impressive, Waymo’s pure driverless car is the gold standard.
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