Waymo CEO Dismisses Tesla Autopilot as Wrong Path to Full Autonomy
Waymo CEO John Krafcik states that Tesla will never achieve full autonomy by simply upgrading its Autopilot driver-assistance system. He views Tesla as a developer of a good driver-assistance tool rather than a competitor in the fully autonomous vehicle space.
Waymo CEO John Krafcik firmly states that Tesla will never achieve full autonomy by simply upgrading its Autopilot driver-assistance system. He explains that it is a major misconception to believe you can magically jump to a fully autonomous driving system just by improving a driver-assistance feature. Krafcik notes that Tesla's "full self-driving" terminology misleads customers into thinking the vehicles are completely autonomous when a human driver actually remains responsible at all times.
Despite Tesla CEO Elon Musk expressing extreme confidence in launching a fully autonomous subscription service soon, Krafcik does not view Tesla as a competitor in the autonomous vehicle sector. Instead, he describes Tesla as a company that develops a really good driver-assistance system. Waymo takes a fundamentally different approach by targeting full autonomy directly and avoiding systems that require a human to be ready to take control.
Waymo, which is owned by Google, currently stands as a leader in the race toward true self-driving technology. The company achieves this by running completely driverless ride-hailing vehicles in Phoenix, relying on extensive real-world testing and simulations rather than relying on human intervention. Waymo recently reached a major milestone by transitioning all of its Phoenix ride-hailing rides to fully driverless operations.