{"id":23673,"date":"2026-09-01T16:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T16:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/waymo-goes-on-offense-ahead-of-teslas-cybercab-launch\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T16:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T16:49:12","slug":"waymo-goes-on-offense-ahead-of-teslas-cybercab-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/waymo-goes-on-offense-ahead-of-teslas-cybercab-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Waymo goes on offense ahead of Tesla's Cybercab launch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Waymo argued last week that fully autonomous vehicles are not possible without using a mix of sensors, and that \u201cpure end-to-end\u201d AI systems are not safe enough \u2014 shots at Tesla, despite the Alphabet-owned company not naming names.<\/p>\n

The company took these swings in a blog post<\/a> and an interview with Axios<\/a> just one week ahead of a September 3 event where Tesla is expected to formally introduce its two-seater Cybercab into its own small-but-growing robotaxi fleet. Waymo also announced three new markets on Tuesday morning, further extending its robotaxi network, which is serving customers in more than a dozen U.S. cities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite being technical and a bit wonky, Waymo\u2019s claims kicked off a social media fight that lasted all weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cArguments they bring forward are poor,\u201d Pierre Ferragu, an analyst and managing partner at New Street Research who covers Tesla, wrote on X.<\/a> \u201cMy read: Waymo built a driving gas plant that AI at scale makes irrelevant, and now falls into incumbent rhetoric. Innovator dilemma 101.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow it feels to say your data and record of success leads you to believe driverless mileage, AI interpretability, and multiple sensor types are critical for safe, fully autonomous driving at scale,\u201d wrote Ethan <\/a>Teicher<\/a>, a Waymo spokesperson, while sharing a John Wick promo image that depicts more than a dozen guns pointed at the head of Keanu Reeves\u2019 character.<\/p>\n

The metaphorical knives \u2014 or guns, apparently \u2014 are out because if Tesla can prove the Cybercab is capable of performing at scale, it would set up a major fight between the two companies and their disparate approaches to developing autonomous vehicles. At stake is a market that could be worth<\/a> hundreds of billions of dollars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For years, this fight was more academic or philosophical than anything. But last week Waymo flexed its real-world experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cCameras are incredible, but they aren\u2019t enough,\u201d Srikanth Thirumalai, a VP who oversees Waymo\u2019s driving software, wrote in the company\u2019s blog post. \u201cFor years, there\u2019s been a debate over whether cameras alone could solve full autonomy. Now, after more than 200 million real-world miles, the data is clear: safe, fully autonomous operations at scale require more. By combining inputs from cameras, lidar, and radar, the Waymo Driver creates a rich, redundant world view that no single sensor can replicate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirumalai also wrote that a pure end-to-end neural architecture that \u201ctakes in raw pixels and directly outputs steering commands\u201d \u2014 which is Tesla\u2019s approach to autonomy \u2014 will \u201crun the risk of black box failures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the best AI models with trillions of parameters still hallucinate,\u201d he told Axios<\/a>. \u201cThere is no click reboot or reload or refresh [in] physical AI. You have to deal with the consequences of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waymo has long taken the approach of integrating a mix of cameras, radar, and lidar sensors into vehicles built by other manufacturers. While it\u2019s a more conservative technological approach, it has allowed the company to scale to a fleet of around 4,000 robotaxis across 14 U.S. cities, which provides 500,000 paid trips per week.<\/p>\n

At Tesla, Elon Musk has long derided the use of lidar, calling it a \u201ccrutch.\u201d The company has instead put all its efforts into trying to make fully autonomous cars using just cameras and AI. And Tesla has spent the last few years developing the Cybercab, a purpose-built two-seater gold sedan designed to be autonomous from the get-go.<\/p>\n

The Cybercab has no steering wheel or pedals and a relatively small battery, and Tesla plans to pump out thousands of them \u2014 a recent filing shows the company aiming to build more than 125,000 annually<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, Tesla still needs to show that its self-driving software is capable of full autonomy. The company is years behind schedule; Musk once promised there would be 1 million robotaxis on the road in 2020 \u2014 though the company has spent the last year trialing its own Tesla Robotaxi network in a handful of cities in Texas and Florida using modified Model Y SUVs.<\/p>\n

Those trials have stayed small, with Tesla claiming it\u2019s prioritizing safety over scale. It\u2019s only within the last few weeks that Tesla has pulled safety monitors out of a majority of those cars<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But that is likely about to change. Tesla has started registering Cybercabs with the Texas DMV ahead of the September 3 event. It\u2019s unclear how quickly the company plans to scale the fleet after introducing the shiny two-seater, though social media users have spotted dozens of them sitting in parking lots around the country.<\/p>\n

If Tesla can show that its AI-first approach to self driving can work at scale, it would be a major accomplishment for the company and validation for its software engineers.<\/p>\n

The company will still have to demonstrate that it can solve all the other problems that come with operating a robotaxi network, though \u2014 problems that Waymo continues to discover as it operates thousands of self-driving cars. Those include navigating harsh weather, steering clear of emergency situations, and operating safely around school zones.<\/p>\n

But beyond the technological differences, there\u2019s another fight brewing: cost. Waymo\u2019s technological approach is naturally more expensive. It uses more sensors, and installs them on vehicles that other companies manufacture. That means Waymo has to buy those vehicles and, in the case of the Zeekr-made Ojai, pay import taxes on them before they\u2019re even outfitted with self-driving technology.<\/p>\n

Tesla makes its own cars and is betting its AI will be capable enough to never need anything other than a few cameras to navigate the world. It\u2019s a major gamble \u2014 one Waymo clearly thinks won\u2019t pay off. But if it does, it gives Tesla the chance to outcompete Waymo, or possibly even Uber, on price.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Waymo argued last week that fully autonomous vehicles are not possible without using a mix of sensors, and that \u201cpure end-to-end\u201d AI systems are not safe enough \u2014 shots at Tesla, despite the Alphabet-owned company not naming names. The company took these swings in a blog post and an interview with Axios just one week […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":23674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scannn.com\/lv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}