They have a relatively small team when compared to Waymo, at least at the research/state-of-the-art level. Don't quote me on this but just look at the the difference between autopilot team size vs Waymo employees size who have a PhD in a related area. It'd at least 10x more ay Waymo, probably even more.
Hardware and HD maps makes a lot of difference too. Planning and decision making always becomes easier when you have a perfect estimate of the environment and good predictions of other agents behaviors. Intent matters a lot more than just recognition/detection in this setting.
To be fair I'd say Autopilot team is doing pretty good for the team of their size. They are no where close to Waymo, that's super clear, but if they focused all of their stack on making driver assistive tech rather than trying to push towards FSD they'd probably be better off.
Hardware and HD maps makes a lot of difference too. Planning and decision making always becomes easier when you have a perfect estimate of the environment and good predictions of other agents behaviors. Intent matters a lot more than just recognition/detection in this setting.
To be fair I'd say Autopilot team is doing pretty good for the team of their size. They are no where close to Waymo, that's super clear, but if they focused all of their stack on making driver assistive tech rather than trying to push towards FSD they'd probably be better off.