Tesla’s head of self-driving admits ‘lagging a couple years’ behind Waymo
Tesla's head of AI and self-driving, Ashok Elluswamy, recently admitted in an interview that the automaker's autonomous program is lagging a couple of years behind Waymo's. However, Tesla's approach is much cheaper, and its cost advantage will allow the company to scale faster. Tesla produces over a million cars a year, versus Waymo's few hundred units, and it plans to use the same vehicles for its autonomous riding service. The company is still limited to a level 2 advanced driver system, which requires constant supervision from the driver, while Waymo has been providing customers with level 4 autonomous driving rides for years. It plans to start offering level 4 autonomous rides to customers in Austin next month.