Tesla’s highly praised reputation as the futuristic car company is being contested by another company, Waymo, who offered rides in self-driving cars to privately selected members for years now. Recently, Waymo announced that their services would be opened to the public. Although this was met with optimism and cheers, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc, responded to the announcement with a shrug; he’s seen it before in his line of Tesla products.

Waymo is a division of Alphabet Inc. It is well known for bringing self-driving cars to specific parts of Arizona in 2016. Its goal is to create a service where anyone can order a self-driving car to pick them up and drive them to any destination. For years, the service was only offered to a select group of individuals named “The Early Riders.”  

Recently, however, Tesla announced that it would begin to expand its services to more areas in only a few more weeks. What does this mean for everyone else? It means that, if all goes as planned, anyone can order a ride for themselves from their phones. Although everyone seems to be amazed, Elon Musk shows little awe at Waymo’s announcement.

On October 8, 2020, Elon Musk tweeted, “Waymo is impressive, but a highly specialized solution. The Tesla approach is a general solution. The latest build is capable of zero-intervention drives. Will release limited beta in a few weeks.” In short, Elon Musk simply says that Waymo is good, but Tesla does it better. He then teases Tesla’s beta releases of their self-driving technology. However, John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, replied to Musk’s tweet with, “Truly autonomous driving machines have warning labels aligned with their capabilities. We're confident in the Waymo Driver.” 

Musk may have talked some big game about his product, but Krafcik definitely poses as a challenging and clever rival to Tesla’s “limited beta general solution.”

by Nathan Park, 10/10/20