What does the suite of hardware cost that Cruise and Waymo are using on the roof of their cars, $100,000? Because that is a commercial technology if they can't integrate their self-driving sensor suite at a price comparable to other vehicles in the same class. I know there's hope that the cost of lidar will come way down, but when? Because if it takes four years for the cost of lidar to become viable for mass-production, that gives Tesla four years to perfect their vision system.
Regardless, I think Tesla's real advantage is that once (if) they get their system to work at Level 4, they'll instantly have a global fleet of autonomous cars ready to provide TaaS in areas where they have extensive familiarity. Everyone else will have to ramp up their fleets, over years.