Waymo, the largest shareholder of which is Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), was founded 15 years ago and began developing a complete version of self-driving car software seven years ago. Its commercial robotaxi operates in Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and it will be offered next month in Austin, TX. It runs 150,000 paid rides per week, totaling over one million miles weekly. It operates with video software and 360-degree cameras that rely on AI Nvidia chips.
The self-driving business is growing rapidly. Last month, Alphabet raised $5.6 billion for Waymo, valued at $45 billion, about the same as Ford’s market cap. While it is hard to forecast which companies will use Waymo, it has deals with Uber and Hyundai. Since most major car companies worldwide are building autonomous driving features, it is hard to say who Waymo’s partners will be.
Tesla has several advantages over Waymo. First, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Mode is on tens of thousands of Teslas. CEO Elon Musk has promised a true self-driving vehicle next year. In other words, Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) self-driving software systems have a massive installed base.
Another advantage Tesla has is that industry experts believe its self-driving projects are ahead of other car companies. Yahoo recently reported that Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, has praised Tesla’s self-driving technology and called Tesla “far ahead” in the field. Since Nvidia is the envy of the AI industry, Huang’s opinions count for a great deal.
Finally, Tesla’s self-driving feature has been available on its cars since 2019. These cars have logged millions of miles well beyond the cities where Waymo is testing. Tesla has massive amounts of real-world data and has had five years to perfect its technology across all of those highways..
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