What's new
By:

Robotaxis prediction

borski said:
This is plainly false.

Much of your analysis is also inaccurate.

Source: I use Waymo ~daily and work at Google.
Click to expand...
They’re an “FSD is better than everything else” fan and cherry picks information to make Waymo look poor compared to Tesla. Yet, they completely ignore the fact that Waymo has been doing DRIVERLESS trips for years now! They lost me when they said some fool is watching traffic cameras to determine how many Tesla Robotaxis are on the road compared to Waymo. Real solid fact reporting right there! 😂
 
Adnillien said:
I am not sure what your source for this is but I see Waymos operating in the rain in Phoenix all the time. Not that we get that much rain here. Halting service during flash floods actually seems prudent.
Click to expand...

borski said:
This is plainly false.

Much of your analysis is also inaccurate.

Source: I use Waymo ~daily and work at Google.
Click to expand...
Waymo literally does not run in rain anymore. You are in california.

In all the other metros (texas, florida, georgia, etc.) they literally do not operate even in light rain/sprinkling weather

This is a recent change after a waymo got washed away for 4 days in san antonio and san antonio service was paused for 5 months. It seems to have started around late june, early july and happen still to this day.

There are some instances recently in austin where waymo was not out, yet robotaxi was operating and the rain was only light at best

Waymo has two separate software for remote ops. They have one which can move the cars by hinting where the car should go. That software seems to require that the car think that the hinted path is clear, meaning a remote operator cannot direct the car to run over something in its path. This is why waymo gets stuck in flood waters and can't move.

Waymo also has a remote driving function which can move the car at low speed using keyboard/mouse. Waymo likes to claim they do not remote drive the cars, so they are too proud to ever use this feature. Instead they'd rather rescue every stuck vehicle than do this.
 
HC_79 said:
They’re an “FSD is better than everything else” fan and cherry picks information to make Waymo look poor compared to Tesla. Yet, they completely ignore the fact that Waymo has been doing DRIVERLESS trips for years now! They lost me when they said some fool is watching traffic cameras to determine how many Tesla Robotaxis are on the road compared to Waymo. Real solid fact reporting right there! 😂
Click to expand...
Tesla reported driverless miles for that week and it was 558K miles. At 100 miles per vehicle per day that puts them at 797 vehicles

Even with 150 miles per day (I doubt it's ever that high) it's still over 500 vehicles and definitely ahead of waymo in Austin
 
mobada said:
Tesla reported driverless miles for that week and it was 558K miles. At 100 miles per vehicle per day that puts them at 797 vehicles

Even with 150 miles per day (I doubt it's ever that high) it's still over 500 vehicles and definitely ahead of waymo in Austin
Click to expand...
You keep using Austin for your argument knowing full well Waymo operates in many more areas than Austin. 🙄
 
HC_79 said:
You keep using Austin for your argument knowing full well Waymo operates in many more areas than Austin. 🙄
Click to expand...

Because it demonstrates tesla can operate in a single city with a high volume of vehicles. What people claimed was not possible.

It was originally speculated (on teslamotorsforum among others) that tesla would achieve 500-750 vehicles by expanding to as many cities as possible and operating nearly nonexistent services (20 or 30 vehicles) with support, remote ops, etc.

The alarming thing is the rate of progress for tesla driving is seemingly very fast.

Also by compariso if you take a city like metro atlanta, tesla has 10 service centers. Between that and 700 superchargers you don't need a depot. Now repeat for every city in america.

Tesla also has 2-3 days of driving range. Waymo has 1/2 day at most
 
mobada said:
Because it demonstrates tesla can operate in a single city with a high volume of vehicles. What people claimed was not possible.

It was originally speculated (on teslamotorsforum among others) that tesla would achieve 500-750 vehicles by expanding to as many cities as possible and operating nearly nonexistent services (20 or 30 vehicles) with support, remote ops, etc.
Click to expand...
Every single post of yours relates back to Tesla either it be robotaxis or the roadster.

You’re in the wrong forum
 
HC_79 said:
Every single post of yours relates back to Tesla either it be robotaxis or the roadster.

You’re in the wrong forum
Click to expand...

your other problem is that waymo has been operating for years but seemingly has issues that have not been fixed in over 5 years of operation. Seemingly no improvement in some metrics.

if you take a city like metro atlanta, tesla has 10 service centers. Between that and 700 superchargers you don't need a depot. Now repeat for every city in america.

Tesla also has 2-3 days of driving range. Waymo has 1/2 day at most

That's why comparing the two companies is not really fair
 
mobada said:
your other problem is that waymo has been operating for years but seemingly has issues that have not been fixed in over 5 years of operation. Seemingly no improvement in some metrics.

if you take a city like metro atlanta, tesla has 10 service centers. Between that and 700 superchargers you don't need a depot. Now repeat for every city in america.

Tesla also has 2-3 days of driving range. Waymo has 1/2 day at most

That's why comparing the two companies is not really fair
Click to expand...
Well good bye
 
Adnillien said:
I am not in California so I can say for sure that your data is not correct.
Click to expand...
I am an Arizona resident. I also have a 2nd home in Marin County. I was an on-the-road eyewitness of Waymo's embarrassing episode in SF last December.

That said, I think some people are generalizing that Waymo cannot operate in rainy weather. Thta's simply not true.

In the December 2025 episode, yes, there was heavy rain in San Francisco. And yes, there were many Waymos "stranded". However, the reason why the Waymos were stranded was NOT because of the rain. The weather in SF that evening resulted in widespread power outages. Many traffic lights were out. Hence, when the Waymos approach a traffic intersection and the traffic lights were out, Waymo's (then) protocol was to message the control room and ask for a manual override before they proceed. That evening, there were many Waymos on the roads and many power outages. The manual override protocol was simply overwhelmed. The majority of the stranded Waymos I saw on that day were at the intersections with traffic light outages,

I don't know anything about the Texas episodes and I will not comment.

Waymo has a fine safety record in the Phoenix area. During the "monsoon season", Phoenix experience flooded roads as well. Flooded roads can be a hazard to all cars, including autonomous cars. It is not a Tesla vs Waymo issue.
 
doubletwist said:
The thing I don't see anyone mentioning when discussing the idea that Tesla is so "great" or catching up with Waymo, or taking about things Waymo doesn't do ... Is the difference in safety mindset between the two companies.

In my mind, Waymo is erring on the side of safety, while Tesla seems to be balls to the wall and damn the consequences in a lot of things.
Click to expand...
yeah, personally I'm not a fan of the lack of backups and redundancy in vision-only. Yes, there's an advantage to Tesla in that they have the data quantity advantage thanks to all their vehicles. But there's a saying in data science, "garbage in, garbage out". And in my opinion, Tesla may have the first mover advantage, but that lead may not be so far ahead for long.

The extra sensors in Waymo give a much richer and higher quality dataset. And quality data is worth more than its weight in gold, if you get me.
 
BS8899 said:
I don't know anything about the Texas episodes and I will not comment.
Click to expand...
I don't think you understand. Every city waymo operates has flooding when it rains. In west midtown in atlanta, it floods on a couple streets. When waymo drives into said streets, the car gets stuck. The remote support software cannot move the car and then it just sits there, blocking the road.

Because of that, waymo has pretty much cut back running in rain. Even light rain in the forecast with no actual rain and sometimes they do not run

For some reason waymo has HD maps yet they can't us the same HD map to identify when a road is full of water and does mot match the elevation it is supposed to

For many years waymo hid this deficiency. Maybe they monitored each geofence and carefully restricted the streets where this was an issue. Whatever they did, they do not do this anymore.

Waymo stopped running in the rain soon after that issue where a car literally washed away for 4 days in san antonio. That was the worst incident waymo ever had
 
Last edited:
mobada said:
I don't think you understand. Every city waymo operates has flooding when it rains. In west midtown in atlanta, it floods on a couple streets. When waymo drives into said streets, the car gets stuck. The remote support software cannot move the car and then it just sits there, blocking the road.

Because of that, waymo has pretty much cut back running in rain. Even light rain in the forecast with no actual rain and sometimes they do not run

For some reason waymo has HD maps yet they can't us the same HD map to identify when a road is full of water and does mot match the elevation it is supposed to

For many years waymo hid this deficiency. Maybe they monitored each geofence and carefully restricted the streets where this was an issue. Whatever they did, they do not do this anymore.

Waymo stopped running in the rain soon after that issue where a car literally washed away for 4 days in san antonio. That was the worst incident waymo ever had
Click to expand...
I am not an expert in hydrology. Yes, I do understand some areas could floor when it rains heavily. I see that all the time. And yes, every time it rains, some idiotic drivers get trapped in these flooded areas.

As you inferred, those flood-prone areas can be geo-fenced.

But extrapolating that Waymo can't dispatch their cars when it rains is a flying leap!
 
BS8899 said:
I am not an expert in hydrology. Yes, I do understand some areas could floor when it rains heavily. I see that all the time. And yes, every time it rains, some idiotic drivers get trapped in these flooded areas.

As you inferred, those flood-prone areas can be geo-fenced.

But extrapolating that Waymo can't dispatch their cars when it rains is a flying leap!
Click to expand...
I never said they can't. I said they don't

They don't run much in rain anymore. This is well documented
 
mobada said:
I don't think you understand. Every city waymo operates has flooding when it rains. In west midtown in atlanta, it floods on a couple streets. When waymo drives into said streets, the car gets stuck. The remote support software cannot move the car and then it just sits there, blocking the road.

Because of that, waymo has pretty much cut back running in rain. Even light rain in the forecast with no actual rain and sometimes they do not run

For some reason waymo has HD maps yet they can't us the same HD map to identify when a road is full of water and does mot match the elevation it is supposed to

For many years waymo hid this deficiency. Maybe they monitored each geofence and carefully restricted the streets where this was an issue. Whatever they did, they do not do this anymore.

Waymo stopped running in the rain soon after that issue where a car literally washed away for 4 days in san antonio. That was the worst incident waymo ever had
Click to expand...

And where are you getting this information that Waymo stops running even if light rain is in the forecast because I can't find anything other than them having stopped a few times during very heavy rains or severe weather.

And frankly, I applaud them for taking the cautious path when it comes to customer and public safety.

We'll see how the robotaxis fare if/when they reach the total driverless miles driven that Waymo has.

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Tesla having more incidents per mile than Waymo by the time they reach that milestone (somewhere around 200 million miles I think it is?). Assuming they don't hide and massage the data.
 
doubletwist said:
And frankly, I applaud them for taking the cautious path when it comes to customer and public safety.
Click to expand...
I don't think you realize what happened. Waymo ran in rain for years. They hid a deficiency where their car could not identify flooding waters and would get stuck in them. Whatever changed with how they operate they could no longer hide this.

They then had issues where the cars would constantly get stuck in floodwaters. One car washed away for 4 days in san antonio. Even after that they continued to operate in rain and continued to get stuck in flood waters.

It was only until around late june/early july about 3 months later they stopped running in rain

none of this makes any sense because with HD maps and lidar this would be an easily solved problem. Waymo seems very slow to fix core deficiencies.

For years they did not cross a train track until late 2025. We already have incidents of them getting stuck between train arms, trying to pass a downed train arm while a train is coming, etc.

Clearly waymo has issues and they don't care about fixing them

They pushed out a fix for blowing past school bus stop signs and they still do it.

People also get this nonsense idea that tesla drives using camera only. They use navigation maps and satellite images for route planning.

How does a human drive other than using cameras? They hear things (tesla has microphones), they feel/hear the car shake when it gets in an accident (tesla has accelerometers), and you can also feel things under your car when you drive. For example, if there's a parking block underneath your bumper, if you move slow enough when pulling forward you'll feel it. Tesla actually has something like this because if the car parks in a pothole, it will move forward then immediately stop because it feels something in front of the car.
 
Last edited:
Don’t feed the trolls
 
Adnillien said:
Please provide a link to the data because I see Waymo's operating in the rain frequently.
Click to expand...

It's all documented in the robotaxi tracker:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2105808475829719161

This is also well documented across reddit.

The week that tesla launched robotaxi in florida, waymo was down almost the entire week in miami and orlando due to rain. Keep in mind there was almost no rain at the time. It was simply a weather forecast of rain that kept them down.

Even when they used to run in rain there are instances of heavy rain where they pull over to the side of the road wait for it to clear.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2108102555431501910

This, for example is pushing the limit of any rain I think waymo can even operate in without pulling over

The thing about waymo is they push "fixes" for recalls like passing school buses, driving into floodwaters, etc. but these fixes seem to not work. It's like they actually can't fix these long standing issues
 
mobada said:
It's all documented in the robotaxi tracker:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2105808475829719161

This is also well documented across reddit.

The week that tesla launched robotaxi in florida, waymo was down almost the entire week in miami and orlando due to rain. Keep in mind there was almost no rain at the time. It was simply a weather forecast of rain that kept them down.

Even when they used to run in rain there are instances of heavy rain where they pull over to the side of the road wait for it to clear.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2108102555431501910

This, for example is pushing the limit of any rain I think waymo can even operate in without pulling over

The thing about waymo is they push "fixes" for recalls like passing school buses, driving into floodwaters, etc. but these fixes seem to not work. It's like they actually can't fix these long standing issues
Click to expand...
So Tesla fans on X and Reddit are your source. That explains a lot of the nonsense that I see in this thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top