Waymo is charging into the city, while Tesla is still burning money on testing?

Recently, it’s getting interesting: Waymo announced this week the launch of fully autonomous driving in five new cities: Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, bringing the total number of operational cities to 10. At the same time, Tesla is still running 30 test vehicles in Austin, Texas, with plans to expand to 500 vehicles by the end of the year, but still requires safety drivers to be inside.

How large is the data gap?

Don't be too happy just because Tesla's stock price has risen by 28% in the last 3 months; wait a moment.

• Waymo has achieved: over 10 million autonomous driving miles, eliminated safety drivers back in 2020.
• Tesla Status: The city of Phoenix has opened permits but has not gone live yet; it has gone to Waymo and already has run 400+ cars.
• Technical Route: Waymo uses LiDAR + radar, while Tesla relies entirely on cameras (low cost but much controversy)

Tesla's Reasons

There are indeed favorable factors — Tesla has the largest fleet in the world (millions of vehicles) as a data source, and its production capacity is unmatched. Moreover, the camera solution is theoretically easier to scale. However, these are all future tense assertions.

Investors should remain calm

Behind the surge in Tesla's stock price is Musk's new compensation plan (up to $1 trillion), but there are all sorts of thresholds: to build 1 million robot taxis, 1 million Optimus robots, and 10 million Full Self-Driving subscriptions. These goals sound like science fiction.

What's even more heartbreaking is that Tesla's market value is already 10 times that of Ford and General Motors, with a P/E ratio close to 300. Given that autonomous driving is still entangled in regulatory lawsuits and safety disputes, this valuation seems a bit precarious.

Bottom line: Waymo is already running real business, while Tesla is still making promises. It's hard to say who is ahead in technology.