The difference is that everyone just buys a simple moisture sensor and Tesla decided to go with a needlessly complex setup based on their cameras. Sure that requires a way more advanced image processing chip, an impressive software achievement in image processing etc.
However, from the consumer perspective (that matters much more if you sell millions of cars to the masses instead of a few hundred thousand to enthusiasts): They had no working automatic windscreen wipers, that puts them 15 to 20 years behind the others. Not 6 years ahead.
They really need to get better at the basics of car making quickly, before the likes of Ford, BMW, Volkswagen etc get good at building electric cars. I guess they have several years left to do it because the big guys move slow, but in their current state they're going to be in trouble no matter how advanced their CPU is.
What he said was that the electronics were light years ahead anything he had seen before, but he wasn't surprised given its a silicon valley car. The chassis on the other hand was way behind the likes of Toyoda.
I can understand that your mileage may have varied but this was through visually inspecting the electronics, not using them in action.