A month after Tesla launched in June a robotaxis test service in Austin, Texas, for a select audience, executive director Elon Musk declared investors that the company without driver of the company would probably be available for “half of the EU population” at the end of this year.
Waymo, from Alphabet, an American leader in autonomous transport services, launched a similar trial service in Phoenix more than eight years ago. Currently, it operates in areas with approximately 3% of the American population.
Musk’s statements about the expansion of Tesla’s robotaxis to a “hyperexponential rhythm” contrast with Waymo’s deliberate approach before entering new markets.
Musk sees a faster path to climb the business thanks to the dependence of Tesla de Chambers and Artificial Intelligence, compared to the AI approach based on Waymo rules, which uses more high -definition sensors and maps. The different strategies have high -range implications for the initial hierarchy in the incipient sector of autonomous driving, which according to some analysts and investors could become a multimillion -dollar market in the next 15 years.
Waymo’s expansion strategy includes thoroughly mapping new cities and gradually implementing the autonomous transport service after trying technology with drivers in the front seat and employed as passengers.
Tesla affirms that his robotaxis use a different autonomous technology than that of Waymo, which allows him to avoid much of that thorough preparation work. The vehicles, even in the test phase, use the reacting to the road conditions as a human would. Tesla affirms that this requires less exhaustive tests and road mapping.
“Once we manage to work basically in a few cities in the United States, we can make it work anywhere in the country,” Musk told analysts at a telephone conference in April. He described the “fragile” Waymo approach and said that his expansion capacity is “limited.”
Many investors shared Musk’s vision. Some analysts attribute most of Tesla’s stock market value to autonomous driving capabilities, which investors bet that they can reach a much faster scale than Waymo initiatives. If you succeed in rapid commercial expansion, the robotaxis business could consolidate a new growth engine for Tesla.
Executives, both current and previous, of Waymo affirm that their market approach by market, mapping and tests before expansion, is essential to guarantee security, since it helps take into account the peculiarities of the roads of each city; For example, the pronounced pending in San Francisco that hinder the vision of the future.
“We really need to understand the main components of each of these cities,” said Aman Nalavade, Waymo product manager. “There is a great risk in doing it incorrectly.”
Musk also talked about the importance of security. “We don’t want to run any risk, so we will act cautiously,” he said last month.
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Contrasting technology between Tesla and Waymo
Both Tesla and Waymo use the autonomous driving. However, Waymo technology implies a more gradual process, where its system collects high -definition maps data and advanced sensors to recognize objects and plan the vehicle route.
Tesla, on the other hand, states that her system makes driving decisions more similar to that of a human. The company said that it uses a method of AI where the video captured by the vehicle cameras is interpreted by software and instantly translated into driving decisions, without the intermediate steps that Waymo uses.
Waymo experimented with aspects of the Tesla approach, but in a research report last year he said that there are “challenges and limitations” in his performance.
Musk established an ambitious deadline to have “millions of teslas operating autonomously” for the second half of next year, which contrasts with the current fleet of approximately 2,000 Waymo vehicles.
After launching the pilot program in Texas in June, Tesla is waiting for approval in Arizona and seeks to expand to states such as Nevada and Florida.
The company is under pressure to fulfill these promises, since its main business, that of electric vehicles, faces difficulties, as its sales of vehicles decreased worldwide, including a strong fall in Europe. Delaying in the Musk schedule for the Robotaxi would delay a new source of key income.
Waymo is the only company in the United States that offers a payment transport service, totally autonomous and accessible to all. It operates in the San Francisco Bay area, in addition to areas of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.
Before expanding to a new market, Waymo perfects its technology through tests in virtual simulators, in a closed circuit of 46 hectares in California and in the streets of the city where it plans to launch.
In Phoenix, he began offering driving tests with driver in the front seat more than three years before opening the payment transport service without driver to the general public in 2020. Almost four years passed until Waymo inaugurated the autonomous service in the terminals of the Phoenix airport, in August 2024.
Waymo states that it is reducing the trial time in new cities as its autonomous technology acquires more experience and applies the lessons learned to new geographies.
Paul Miller, an analyst at the Forrester Market research firm, said that Waymo’s approach is safer and more realistic in the short term, while Tesla’s is a more risky bet, but “much cheaper to climb globally.”
Bank of America analysts estimate that Waymo lost between 1,200 and 1.5 billion dollars last year. However, they expect the Waymo model to be profitable as the costs of the vehicles fall and the number of passengers increase.
Morningstar analysts projected in a March report that Waymo would have a “rapid growth period” in the coming years, while Tesla would have an “initial deployment of slower robotaxis”, because its software “will not be ready.”
Morningstar hopes that Tesla Lance Robotaxis totally autonomous by 2028 and exceeds the Waymo market share in the car travel sector by the end of the decade.
With Reuters information
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