Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is if it disengages or requires intervention twice. The major players are at tens of thousands of miles between disengagement. We’re talking days or weeks of non-stop driving without disengagements.
Disengagement on a Tesla (manual override of the specific driver, riding on an unknown route) vs Waymo (pre-mapped tiny geographical area, no info on what counts as disengagement) can not be comparable.
The only differentiating factor is that Tesla's approach has theoretical benefits, if they can prove it works. If they could hit the same disengagements/mile rate as Waymo, they would likely be ahead since they don't need pre-mapping.
That being said, theoretical benefits are worth about the same as monopoly money. Until they can demonstrate that they can get the same performance without pre-mapping and LIDAR, it's all just conjecture. There are no points awarded for "yeah, well if mine had worked it would have been better!" They might get there eventually, but the current signs don't seem promising. At least not for getting there before Waymo completely eats the market.
Also, at least Waymo's disengagements are known. They're defined by the DMV, it's basically "any time control needs to be taken away from the autopilot". If a human in the car manually takes over, that's a disengagement. If the car decides it can't drive safely and prompts a human to take over, that's a disengagement. If someone has to log in to the car with a joystick to get it somewhere, that's a disengagement.
The only confusing situation I'm aware of is when remote techs give the car waypoints, like if it gets confused in a parking lot. I don't believe that counts as a disengagement because the car is still driving itself, it's basically just failing at pathfinding. That seems reasonable to me, because it's not a safety risk at all, just an annoyance to the business.