Tesla has a self-driving strategy other companies abandoned years ago
Waymo keeps plugging away. Each year, for the last few years, the number of miles between disconnects they report to the CA DMV has doubled.  Three more doublings, and that number will be bigger than average miles between accidents for human drivers. Then they can ship a product.<p>Nobody else is even close.<p>This problem is slowly being solved, by normal engineering practices. The "fake it til you make it" players are being left behind. Uber has been shown to be totally incompetent.  Tesla really just has a good lane follower and an mediocre car follower. Apple has been trying to hand-wave by talking about "significant disconnects" vs. the all disconnects DMV requires them to report.<p>The LIDAR industry is struggling, but there is progress. Quanergy seems to have been mostly hype.[1] Continental, the big European auto parts maker, bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which makes and sells a good but expensive flash LIDAR used in DoD and space applications. They packaged it up for automotive use, and are waiting for the self driving industry to catch up. That technology uses exotic indium-gallium-arsenide sensor ICs, which are expensive in small quantities but would probably be affordable if they could sell a few million a year.<p>This looks like a problem that's being solved. Just not fast enough for startups used to quick payoffs in software.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-13/how-a-billion-dollar-autonomous-vehicle-startup-lost-its-way" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-08-13/how-a-bil...</a>