For many, Tesla is synonymous with self-driving. If you follow the space more closely, you may also be familiar with Waymo or Cruise. But very few have heard of the company that is perhaps the true leader in self-driving, comma.

comma is a lowercase company…some companies are uppercase companies, they have too much hype

— George “geohot” Hotz, comma founder

While Tesla makes weekly appearances in Tech Crunch, it’s been nearly four years since comma has made an appearance. This is despite comma being ranked first in Consumer Reports’ 2020 ADAS report, with a score of 78 out of 100 (Cadillac was second with 69 and Tesla third with 57).

comma takes a radically different approach to cracking self-driving than companies like Tesla and Waymo. While Tesla and Waymo race to build proprietary tech behind closed doors, comma is building in public, pioneering open-source self-driving software called “openpilot.”

If you want to use Tesla’s tech, you have to buy a Tesla that costs $59k minimum ($47k base Model 3 plus $12k for full self-driving capability). But with the “comma three” dev kit, you can add self-driving to your $20k Toyota Corolla (or over 150 other cars with varying levels of compatibility) for $1999.

The comma three looks like a dashcam or GPS system that attaches to your front windshield. It has a display and three cameras, and makes use of any other sensors that your car has available by hooking into the onboard computer. When activated, your car reveals its newly acquired intelligence and takes the wheel—literally.

So why is comma so under the radar, if it’s so capable and so cheap? It stems from the fact that the comma three is a dev kit. It’s not yet a mass market product. Installation on even the most compatible cars is not quite plug and play, requiring half an hour and encountering parts of your car you’ve probably never seen. On less compatible cars, it can require a basic knowledge of GitHub and coding to get running.

While this might be intimidating to most, it’s been attainable for many, with comma claiming that openpilot has more users than Cadillac’s Super Cruise and Ford’s BlueCruise, and is second only to Tesla’s Autopilot.

As openpilot’s capabilities continue to pull ahead of car manufacturer’s in-house self-driving, it may be that companies like Toyota and Hyundai begin to opt to use comma’s tech instead—something they’re free to do given its open-source licensing. This is when comma could really start to see the mass adoption its capabilities deserve.

In the meantime, comma continues to work diligently to improve its performance and make a simpler experience for users. They aim to drive from their office to Taco Bell (a route including a highway and city streets) “without a disengagement, on a comma three, in a stock, production, car, using open source code, by the end of the year.”