Waymo drives in dramatic downpour while Tesla Robotaxi sits it out. The LiDAR didn’t prevent the Waymo from having to “take a knee” three times in this tsunami. Turns out Tesla avoided increased accident risk. An accident later occurred from where we left in the Waymo. Clip 1/4

WILD driving. Lots of hesitations. Starting and stopping. DELUGE Clip 2/3

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FSD has driven me around in crazy Florida downpours with no problem. They are rolling this out being very cautious, but the tech works in heavy rain.

During heavy rain, LiDAR performance is degraded. Rain scatters and absorbs laser pulses, reducing range and accuracy. Larger raindrops cause more interference, and water on the sensor can further distort signals. A lot of humans, would just either slow down, or wait until it passes. I see this all the time in very heavy rain with people even pulling off the road. An autonomous car that mimics this is going to be the safest option, because that's what other human drivers expect it to do.

Given Tesla just launched Robotaxi I certainly don't blame them for playing it safe at the moment. The last thing we'd want is an accident that we all know would get magnified ten fold vs. Waymo. If the Waymo was involved in an accident, I'm sure the media wouldn't even cover it. However, if it's Tesla we'll be hearing about it for the next 5 years.

Your car needs to pull over. Bradford’s Waymo (pronounced: Way mo money) than a Tesla Robotaxi.

Wasn’t that part of their rollout strategy? Misleading to say they took a knee. But fits your agenda, so I get it.

But, but... It has Way mo're sensors and that's all it should require... -This Guy probably 🤡

I have worked with Lidar in an industrial setting and it would give us down time in this same scenario as well as fog and low sun conditions. Lidar, for some reason, maybe marketing, has gotten the public over hyyped.

I have version 12 FSD on AI3 hardware and it drives better than me in worse rain than that. This is a bit nothing burger. Lame.

The only thing that would have made this better is if somehow we could have gotten a personal Tesla on fsd trying to make the same trip and see if it’s a true FSD can’t make it issue or a Tesla being overly cautious. Without that it seems like the only conclusion is neither can handle

No. It’s a safety issue. During that storm in that same area, there was an accident where a car was totaled and an ambulance called. It’s not just your car, it’s avoiding human-driven cars. Humans get flustered, scared and can have a hard time seeing in such conditions.