Elon Musk Took a Shot at Waymo. the Ex-Waymo CEO Fired Again.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a number of digs at considered one of his largest rivals within the robotaxi race, Waymo, throughout Tuesday’s earnings name.

Ex-Waymo CEO John Krafcik shot again: Verify the scoreboard.

“Tesla has by no means competed with Waymo — they’ve by no means offered a robotaxi journey to a public rider, however they’ve offered a whole lot of automobiles,” Krafcik stated in an electronic mail to Enterprise Insider. “And though Tesla hopes to compete with Waymo sometime, they’ve failed completely and utterly at this for every of the ten years they have been speaking about it.”

Krafick led Waymo between 2015 and 2021, overseeing the self-driving division’s spin-out from Alphabet in 2016. He was changed with two co-CEOs, Tekedra Mawakana and Dmitri Dolgov. Krafick at present serves on Rivian’s board.

Tesla made one other massive push for its robotaxi wager throughout its newest earnings presentation.

Musk stated the preliminary “pilot” rollout in Austin this June will include 10 to twenty robotaxis, utilizing Tesla Mannequin Ys. The ramp-up afterwards will likely be fast, he stated, predicting “tens of millions” of fully-autonomous Teslas on the highway by the second half of subsequent yr and a market-share domination of “99% or one thing ridiculous.”

The CEO sounded assured on the decision about Tesla’s method to autonomy, which depends on cameras and a “generalized” AI that the corporate stated will have the ability to adapt to varied driving environments with out the necessity of pre-mapping a selected area.

That is totally different from Waymo.

Waymo maps out a metropolis like San Francisco or Tokyo with its automobiles earlier than deploying a robotaxi service to the general public, and it makes use of a beneficiant set of lidar sensors and cameras.

Musk has stated earlier than that this method is arduous and costly, and he reiterated his level through the earnings name.

“The difficulty with Waymo’s automobiles is it prices far more cash,” Musk stated, making a play on Waymo’s title. “Rim shot.”

He later added: “Waymo determined that an costly sensor suite was the way in which to go, although Google’s excellent at AI. It is ironic.”

Musk estimated that Tesla may make robotaxis that value a “quarter to twenty%” lower than the price of Waymo’s Jaguar I-PACE automobiles — and it will achieve this at increased volumes by way of its distinctive manufacturing strategies.

Krafcik, the ex-Waymo CEO, thinks the fee discuss is a moot level when contemplating security.

In the long term, the price of sensors has a “trivial cost-per-mile affect over the helpful lifetime of a robotaxi,” he instructed BI,” whereas additionally offering large quantifiable security advantages.”

‘Undelivered guarantees’

Tesla’s robotaxi imaginative and prescient hinges on a key piece of know-how it calls Full Self-Driving, which is powered by the corporate’s personal {hardware} stack.

Thus far, the corporate has not rolled out a public model of the software program that operates with out the supervision of a human driver.

On Wednesday, the corporate shared a put up on X, previewing the robotaxi app and repair in Silicon Valley. Tesla stated within the put up that the corporate has accomplished over 1,500 journeys and 15,000 miles of driving.

The video confirmed an individual hailing a Mannequin Y. One scene confirmed a security operator sitting behind the wheel.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan stated in his newest forecast that Tesla may generate $80 billion in robotaxi income a yr within the US by 2040.

Krafcik is skeptical.

“Effectively, after 10 years of undelivered guarantees, it appears fairly rational for these watching to be data- and evidence-driven,” he stated. “There’s nonetheless a whole lot of guarantees, nonetheless no Tesla legal responsibility for FSD driving efficiency, and nonetheless no common robotaxi service.”

The previous CEO acknowledged that Tesla’s FSD has improved, however he argued that that is totally different from displaying that the corporate has a secure, “actually autonomous” robotaxi service.

Tesla and Waymo didn’t reply to a request for remark.