>And it was Autopilot that set off a race to develop advanced driver-assistance systems that can guide cars under certain circumstances and actively prevent collisions — though Tesla’s technology appears to have been surpassed by the self-driving systems from other companies, including G.M. and the Google spinoff Waymo.
Is this in any way true? My understanding was that Waymo, or even the DARPA grand challenges, were what kicked self driving cars off, and the driver assist features were picking up steam before Tesla.
A bit of both; there were self-driving cars before Tesla, but Tesla was the first to commercially field any kind of "autopilot" feature, spurring on the existing competition
Is this in any way true? My understanding was that Waymo, or even the DARPA grand challenges, were what kicked self driving cars off, and the driver assist features were picking up steam before Tesla.