“Thinking of developing an assisted driving system to the point of turning it, sooner or later, into an autonomous driving system is wrong from the beginning. "
Over the years, the Tesla Autopilot system has been heavily criticized, also due to the marketing strategies adopted to advertise it: the last, very clear example is that of the latest update called 'Full Self-Driving'. The name is very clear and direct, and this leads us to think of a system that is completely autonomous, which is not yet the case today. In all instances where FSD is activated, the car requires the driver to stay behind the wheel and be ready to regain control of the car at any time.
Despite Musk's recent words, he says being confident of the possibility of releasing Full Self-Drive on the market very soon, Krafcik claims he does not feel in direct competition with Tesla as the EV manufacturer is "developing a very good driver assistance system", not a system of autonomous driving.
Waymo is probably the leader in the sector, also thanks to the acquisition by Google in 2011; for years it has been working on developing an autonomous driving system, and for some time has been managing a fleet of self-driving vehicles on the streets of Phoenix, in the United States, which has been operating a driverless taxi service since October. Waymo had clear ideas from the start: to develop an autonomous driving system without going through an assisted driving system with the need for the driver to always remain focused on the road, since the latter aspect makes the system very unsafe. br>