Part 5/9:
Hotz has been outspoken in criticizing some of the industry’s prominent players. He dismisses Robo-taxi startups like Vemo and Cruz as flawed approaches to full self-driving—implying that their reliance on lidar and other high-cost sensors are insufficient for scaling autonomous vehicle fleets effectively. He’s argued that unless companies pursue a different strategy—like Tesla’s approach of leveraging camera-based systems—catching up is unlikely, particularly without a vast fleet for data collection.