Tesla vs. Waymo: The Trillion Dollar Robotaxi Battle

A rundown of the essential differences between Tesla’s and Waymo’s robotaxi technology and strategy

Since the early 2010s, several companies have jumped into the race to have their own fully autonomous self-driving cars. However, the vast amount of research, technical innovation, interdisciplinary domain expertise, and capital required to achieve this has left only a handful of those challengers in the game. More specifically, very few companies are left now in the robotaxi business.

Back in 2022, Cruise, funded by General Motors, was the first to launch a robotaxi service in a major US city. Two years and an accident later, GM decided that it would no longer fund the robotaxi project. Similarly, Uber was very early to the race, but a series of legal battles and involvement in the first known fatality by an autonomous vehicle eventually led to the company pulling out in 2020.

Among the ones remaining in the fight are Tesla and Waymo.

Tesla has been on a mission to launch fully autonomous self-driving cars for well over a decade now, during which billionaire CEO Elon Musk has constantly made promises that so far are unfulfilled. The company’s robotaxi service launched its first public trials in June, albeit not without problems.

Waymo, originally known as the Google self-driving car project, started in 2009 and was spun out of Google in 2016 to become a subsidiary under Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Up till now, Waymo has focused on just developing robotaxis — unlike Tesla, which has been more focused on the larger concept of self-driving as a whole. The company recently closed a $5.6 billion funding round in October 2024.

Tesla vs. Waymo robotaxi — A Waymo robotaxi driving down the street, September 15, 2023. Photo Credit: Unsplash.

Current State of Competition: Tesla vs. Waymo

The situation on the ground is that Waymo already has a self-driving system working in multiple cities with 250,000 weekly riders, while Tesla has just started testing in public. The difference is so overwhelming, a few dozen trips versus millions, but Tesla is betting on exponential growth — the idea that once they have the technology figured out, they will be able to expand very quickly.

While Waymo had to partner with manufacturers like Jaguar to produce their cars, Tesla already has millions of cars out on the roads that it hopes it can convert to fully autonomous robotaxis using software updates. The company has a lot of infrastructure already there, including the largest charging network and service centers in many cities.

However, the difference in strategy and technology between the two strongly suggests that Waymo is here for the kill.

Musk joked during Tesla’s earnings call earlier this year that Waymo costs “‘way mo’ money.”

Difference in Self-Driving Technology and Methodology

The most apparent technological difference between the two is in equipment.

Waymo and most of the industry believe the path to reliable self-driving cars is through the use of cameras and other sensors such as LIDAR and radar. These sensors help push Waymo’s cars towards 100% reliability as they measure the distance and speed of everything on the road. Tesla wants to do it with just cameras and machine learning.

Musk has repeatedly argued that true self-driving capability will be achieved through using just cameras, similar to how humans only navigate the road with their eyes.

“Lidar is lame,” Musk said in 2019. “In cars, it’s friggin’ stupid. It’s expensive and unnecessary.”

Currently, Lidar technology used by Waymo and other competitors costs approximately $12,000 per vehicle, while an only-cameras setup costs just $400. This once again plays into Tesla’s long-shot bet of exponential growth. Waymo’s vehicles carry 29 cameras and 11 other sensors compared to Tesla’s 8 cameras.

However, the difference in technology extends to methodology as well.

Waymo has been testing self-driving cars without a safety driver since 2017. Even when Cruise rushed to become the first to launch a robotaxi service in a major city, Waymo was already operating in less risky areas like suburban Phoenix.

Waymo’s approach has been excruciatingly patient and careful. The company initially spent years mapping the cities it was supposed to launch in, which is used to create a “geofence” that the robotaxis stay inside of.

Waymo detection under bad light — Source: Google I/O

Waymo has the advantage of Google’s Maps team, but Tesla does not face a lack of data, considering the number of cars it has on the road. Rather, Tesla chooses not to rely on this method, and their cars create a map on the fly while driving using cameras and machine learning. This puts Tesla’s cars at a huge disadvantage when lighting conditions are not ideal, like in fog.

While Waymo is currently the industry leader, Chinese companies BYD and Baidu are close seconds on the list to have a piece of the trillion-dollar robotaxi industry.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of Impakter.com — In the Featured Photo: The 5th-generation Waymo Driver on the all-electric Jaguar I-PACE. Featured Photo Credit: Waymo.