I think direct drive has its use cases but big players (i.e waymo) use the former method of waypoint teleoperations, for the reasons you mentioned.
From a business perspective its also more scalable since you can just remotely control the bot with a mouse and a screen (and not need a full gaming setup). Also as you can imagine many companies probably also multiplex single teleoperators over multiple vehicles. Having indirect control facilitates this better since you dont need operators to effectively "drive" bots with their undivided attention one at a time.
5g does make teleops better in general, but its also kind of expensive and still incurs a latency penalty (i.e remote driver action --> bot action feels insanely sluggish). I think as you scale it becomes less feasible to do direct drive, as you said.
Disclaimer: I work at another AV adjacent company so this is just my take on what I think others are doing from hearsay.
From a business perspective its also more scalable since you can just remotely control the bot with a mouse and a screen (and not need a full gaming setup). Also as you can imagine many companies probably also multiplex single teleoperators over multiple vehicles. Having indirect control facilitates this better since you dont need operators to effectively "drive" bots with their undivided attention one at a time.
5g does make teleops better in general, but its also kind of expensive and still incurs a latency penalty (i.e remote driver action --> bot action feels insanely sluggish). I think as you scale it becomes less feasible to do direct drive, as you said.
Disclaimer: I work at another AV adjacent company so this is just my take on what I think others are doing from hearsay.