the cost advantage will enable it to scale faster.
Technically, Waymo is already performing. We are maybe lagging by a couple years.
This should be obvious to anyone following closely since Tesla has yet to be able to do what Waymo has been doing for years: provide customers with level 4 autonomous driving rides.
Tesla has been limited to a level 2 advanced driver assist system (ADAS), which requires constant supervision from the driver.
Nonetheless, it is a rare admission from Tesla as its CEO, Elon Musk, has been minimizing Waymo’s achievements for years and claimed that he doesn’t see anyone close to Tesla on autonomy.
It’s true that Tesla’s vehicles are much cheaper than Waymo’s, but there are many reasons for that.
The cost of lidar sensors has been one of the top suspects. Costs have come down quite a bit, and it is not really a problem anymore, but they are more power hungry than Tesla’s sensors, which are just cameras.
The real difference in the cost of the vehicles is the fact that Tesla produces over a million cars a year, versus Waymo producing a few hundred units now and a few thousand units soon. Waymo also buys the vehicles from other manufacturers and simply integrates its sensor suite and hardware.
Tesla benefits from economies of scale, but that’s because it sells those vehicles to customers who, in the vast majority, do not buy Tesla’s Full Self-Driving package since it doesn’t do what the name implies.
Considering Waymo has a system that already works, it is currently completing over 250,000 paid rides per week, it already is operating in 5 markets, and it is both expanding the geo-fencing areas of those markets and expanding into other markets with more vehicles, I think it’s clear that it is ahead of Tesla in autonomous driving.