Alphabet Inc’s autonomous vehicle unit Waymo could one day offer its self-driving robotaxis for personal ownership, CEO Sundar Pichai said Thursday, marking a possible shift in strategy for the unit that has so far focused on ride-hailing services.
“There is future optionality for personal ownership,” Pichai said during Alphabet’s quarterly earnings call, without providing specific timelines or further details. The remarks come as Tesla (TSLA.O) plans to roll out its own robotaxi service this year in the United States, setting up potential competition in the autonomous mobility space.
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Waymo began as an experimental project within Google in 2009 and became a separate company under Alphabet in 2016. The company now operates more than 700 vehicles, including 300 in San Francisco, and is currently the only U.S. firm offering fully autonomous, fare-collecting robotaxi rides without human drivers on board. The business has grown gradually despite high development costs, complex regulations, and the technical challenges of building safe autonomous systems.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has championed a vision of robotaxis as a core part of Tesla’s future, said during Tesla’s earnings call this week that his company’s vehicles offer a cost advantage over Waymo’s. “Teslas probably cost a quarter, 20%, of what a Waymo costs and made in very high volume,” Musk said. “I don’t see anyone being able to compete with Tesla at present.”
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While Waymo’s vehicles rely on a combination of cameras, lidar, and radar to map roads in 3D, Tesla uses a camera-only system backed by artificial intelligence. Tesla argues its approach is more scalable and cost-efficient, though some experts caution that it may struggle in complex urban environments and adverse weather conditions.
Tesla is aiming to launch its paid robotaxi service by June, starting in Austin, Texas, where regulatory oversight is limited. It also plans to expand to other states including California. The company has long maintained that its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems require driver supervision, but its fully autonomous taxi service would place liability on Tesla in case of crashes.
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Meanwhile, Waymo is growing its footprint through partnerships with companies such as Uber, Moove, Hyundai, Zeekr, and Jaguar. Analysts say any move into personal ownership would likely follow a similar partnership model. “Google doesn’t build its own automobiles and I certainly don’t think they would try to get into that business,” said David Heger, equity analyst at Edward Jones.
Waymo currently operates in San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin, and has plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. The company reported running over 250,000 fully autonomous paid rides per week.
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Pichai’s remarks on Waymo came in response to an analyst’s question during the earnings call. “This is probably the first question I’ve got on an earnings call on Waymo,” he said, adding with a laugh, “It’s a sign of its progress.”