I don’t doubt that Waymo car is more advanced than FSD, but that comparison isn’t as impressive as it sounds. The numbers of FSD equipped Teslas dwarfs that of Waymos, and they are available everywhere, not just selective cities. You have to take that into account.

Teslas is also much cheaper, and easier to scale. Tesla has better growth potential even if their tech is less impressive.

It's not that their FSD tech isn't less impressive, it's that it's not FSD tech.

Even worse (for Tesla) is that if they do try an make their non-FSD tech do FSD, and it decks little jimmy because the flashlight in his hand looked like a far off street light, Tesla is liable to face a knee-jerk federal law mandating lidar. And just like that the dream is dead.

This forces Tesla to be extremely paranoid, as it's one visual mistake away from being told to use lidar.

Why is a 34x improvement in the rate of interventions not as impressive as it sounds?

I’m not even sure that Waymo number is still correct. They’re doing hundreds of thousands of paid rides per week, with no one in the front seat, so not sure what an “intervention” even means at that point. Maybe where the passenger needed help and called support? That’s 1000x better than needing to grab the wheel because your Tesla was about to drive into oncoming traffic or run over a kid in a wheelchair.