Photo: Waymo
Building autonomous cars is allegedly “harder than rocket science,” says the same company taking on Tesla’s autonomous driving, a vehicle company whose CEO literally runs a rocket company.
Still, the task’s difficulty hasn’t stopped Waymo from manufacturing a completely autonomous vehicle of its own, as Waymo CEO, John Krafcik, claims that, “For us, Tesla is not a competitor at all,” as reported by Ars Technica.
Krafcik said, “We manufacture a completely autonomous driving system. Tesla is an automaker that is developing a really good driver assistance system.”
To my surprise, Tesla has better AI hardware & software than Waymo (money)
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2021
Elon Musk responded on Sunday by saying, “to my surprise, Tesla has better AI hardware and software than Waymo (money).”
Cost of a Self Driving Car
Waymo — $400,000
Tesla — $35,000 (soon $25,000)Way mo’ money, way mo’ problems
— Whole Mars Catalog (@WholeMarsBlog) January 25, 2021
According to Forbes, Waymo sent the publication the full transcript of what the company’s CEO said to German publication Manager Magazin. Below is an excerpt referring to the quote about Tesla not being a competitor:
“Tesla is a car company making a really good driver assist system. And I think Tesla does a really good job in their legal statements warning the drivers of those cars to pay attention, to keep their hands on the steering wheel, and reminding the human driver that they’re the ones in control of the car. So no Tesla is not a competitor at all. They’re a car company making a driver assist system. We’re a company making a fully autonomous driver.”
While Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) is the only advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) currently available, a number of other companies like Waymo, Honda, Amazon, GM, and others have announced efforts within the autonomous driving market.
Waymo has seemingly had it out for Tesla’s FSD the past few months, and recently the company re-worded its autonomous driving description in what was unanimously considered a slight towards Tesla’s FSD.
Nevertheless, competition is a good thing when it comes to autonomous cars. We’re not quite at Level 5 autonomy yet, but it’s going to be interesting to see who can perfect a system first out of the gate. So far, Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta appears to be off to an incredible start, based on the videos we’ve seen of it in action.
