Tesla CEO Elon Musk dismissed Alphabet's Waymo as a competitor in autonomous driving, stating on X that it 'never really had a chance' against Tesla. The comment responded to Google DeepMind Chief Scientist Jeff Dean's highlight of Waymo's superior rider-only autonomous miles. Musk's remark comes amid Tesla's plans to launch unsupervised robotaxis in Austin soon.
On December 10, 2025, Elon Musk posted on X, replying to Jeff Dean's observation about the disparity in autonomous driving experience. Dean noted that Tesla lacks the volume of rider-only autonomous miles compared to Waymo, which has reached approximately 100 million such miles as of recent data. He described Waymo's safety data as compelling.
Musk responded: "Waymo never really had a chance against Tesla. This will be obvious in hindsight."
This exchange highlights the ongoing rivalry between the two leaders in U.S. self-driving technology. Waymo, owned by Alphabet, operates fully driverless commercial services in cities including San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin. Its latest safety report shows a 91% reduction in serious injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers.
In contrast, Tesla's robotaxi service, launched in Austin on June 22, 2025, still requires safety monitors. In Austin, monitors occupy the passenger seat on local roads and the driver's seat on highways; in the Bay Area, a monitor is always in the driver's seat. Tesla has logged over 550,000 robotaxi miles, but none are rider-only without supervision.
Musk reiterated plans to remove safety monitors from Austin operations within three weeks, stating, "Unsupervised is pretty much solved at this point. So there will be Tesla Robotaxis operating in Austin with no one in them... in about three weeks." This would align with his earlier promises from September, October, and November to achieve unsupervised rides by year's end.
Tesla employs a vision-only approach, differing from Waymo's use of LiDAR, which Musk has previously called a 'fool's errand.' Tesla aims for global scalability through over-the-air updates on its existing fleet, while Waymo focuses on dedicated vehicles in major cities. Tesla's safety reports have faced criticism for comparing supervised Full Self-Driving to human drivers without granular injury data.
