Tesla’s Plan to CRUSH Waymo

Tesla's Seeding Strategy

🚗 Q: What is Tesla's initial robo taxi deployment plan?
A: Tesla plans to launch 15-20 robo taxis in 20-30 cities across the US, starting with self-certifying states like Texas, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.

🌎 Q: What is Tesla's target for US population coverage?
A: Tesla aims to capture half the US population by the end of 2026 with 40,000-50,000 robo taxis.

🏙️ Q: How will Tesla scale in major metropolitan areas?
A: Tesla plans to scale above 1,000 robo taxis in major metropolitan areas after initial deployment.

Regulatory Approach

🚦 Q: How is Tesla navigating regulatory challenges?
A: Tesla's "regulatory hack" allows them to start autonomous ride-sharing services immediately, using a different set of regulations that allows drivers to be hands-off while using FSD.

📊 Q: How does Tesla's approach differ from Waymo's?
A: Tesla's strategy involves introducing autonomous services across multiple cities as fast as possible, while Waymo's HD mapping strategy is expensive and not scalable.

Future of Autonomous Driving

🧠 Q: How might AGI impact the autonomous driving industry?
A: By 2028, AGI companies like Google, OpenAI, and others may commoditize FSD technology, enabling highly intelligent models to drive cars.

💰 Q: What financial resources might be needed to compete in this space?
A: Companies may need around $50 billion to execute a competitive strategy, which is considered "peanuts" for tech giants like Google.

Waymo's Strategy and Challenges

🔄 Q: What technology shift might Waymo make?
A: Waymo may switch from their expensive Lidar-based technology to a neural nets and vision-only approach, similar to Tesla's.

🤝 Q: What partnership might Waymo need to compete?
A: Waymo may need a joint venture with a major OEM to develop a scalable robo taxi manufacturing line by 2028 or 2029.

Market Dynamics

🏁 Q: When might the autonomous driving market become difficult for new entrants?
A: By 2029, with Tesla potentially having millions of robo taxis, it may become "completely dead in the water" for new competitors.

🏆 Q: Who are the likely major players in the autonomous driving market?
A: Tesla and potentially Google (through Waymo) are seen as the main contenders, with other companies facing significant challenges to compete.

Tesla's Competitive Advantage

⚡ Q: What gives Tesla an edge in scaling?
A: Tesla's end-to-end neural network approach is more scalable and cost-effective compared to Waymo's 3D mapping strategy.

🚀 Q: How does Tesla plan to expand its robo taxi fleet?
A: Tesla aims to have over 10 million robo taxis by 2031, rapidly scaling their operations.

Waymo's Potential Strategies

🎣 Q: What is Waymo's potential "bait and switch" strategy?
A: Waymo might seed cities with current technology while losing money, then switch to AGI-powered cars when available to scale cheaply.

💡 Q: What technological belief might be crucial for Waymo's success?
A: Waymo needs to believe in AGI's ability to learn how to drive and have cars ready to power this technology.

Market Commitment and Resources

💼 Q: How committed is Google to the autonomous driving market?
A: Google's commitment is considered high, with the CEO discussing it and the company having extensive resources.

📅 Q: What is the critical timeline for Waymo to remain competitive?
A: Waymo needs to execute a joint venture with an OEM by 2028 or 2029 at the latest to compete with Tesla's massive scaling.

Tesla's Robo Taxi Strategy

🚗 Tesla's seeding strategy involves launching small-scale robo taxi pilots in 20-30 cities across the US, starting with self-certifying states like Texas, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.

🌐 The goal is to capture the entire country quickly and cautiously, aiming to reach 40,000-50,000 robo taxis by the end of 2026.

🔄 Tesla's approach is to "go big wide fast, then deep slow" in each city, obtaining regulatory approval for every location and starting immediately instead of waiting.

Regulatory and Technical Approaches

🚦 Tesla's "regulatory hack" allows them to operate autonomous ride-sharing services in California using FSD with hands-off drivers, qualifying for phase one of the regulatory process while collecting phase two data independently.

🧠 Tesla's end-to-end neural network approach to self-driving is considered the right technical bet long-term, despite constraints on sensors and cost.

🗺️ Whim's HD mapping strategy is deemed expensive and not scalable, making it a poor business model according to Jo Bhakdi.

Google and Waymo's Position

🔬 Google's AGI research arm has produced papers showing that neural nets and vision-only systems can recognize and navigate environments, indicating a potential shift in Whim's technology.

🔄 Waymo started with classical computer vision and motion planning but now recognizes the need to move towards a Tesla-like approach with more neural networks.

🚀 Google is betting on AGI-powered self-driving with simple cameras like Tesla's setup but needs to seed cities with their current technology in the meantime.

Future of Autonomous Driving

🌐 Google's AGI models are predicted to become commoditized by 2028, allowing any car manufacturer to enter the robo taxi market.

⚖️ Google's strategy as the "number two" player may benefit from a tailwind as various stakeholders try to prevent a monopoly in the autonomous driving market.

🏭 Tesla's scalable robo taxi manufacturing line is expected to be massive by 2028, with potential for "insane scaling" of their robo taxi fleet.

Challenges and Competition

🔄 Waymo faces challenges in changing their validated safety-critical system on public roads, as it introduces risk and requires regulatory approval.

🏁 To compete effectively, Waymo needs to seed cities with their current technology, then transition to AGI when ready, requiring a scalable robo taxi manufacturing line with a major OEM partner by 2028 or 2029.

💼 Companies aiming to compete with Tesla in the robo taxi market will need thousands of cars on the road and a seeding strategy to scale to millions of robo taxis by 2031.

Market Dynamics

🏆 The autonomous driving market is shaping up to be either a Tesla monopoly or a two-player game with Waymo as the potential second player.

🔍 Google's commitment to autonomous driving is high due to CEO talk and financial investment, but they need to believe AGI can learn to drive and have cars to implement it.

🔮 By 2028, if Waymo isn't prepared to scale to a million of their own cars, they risk being left behind as Tesla's robo taxi fleet expands rapidly.

• 00:00 🤖 Tesla aims to surpass Waymo in autonomous technology with a strategy to scale globally and dominate the market.
  • Tesla and Waymo are competing for control of the future of transportation, with a guest expert sharing theories on Tesla's strategy to surpass Waymo and scale autonomy globally.
  • Tesla aims to surpass Waymo in autonomous technology, and the speaker analyzes the strategies and numbers to determine how and when Tesla can dominate the market.
  • Google's Waymo and Tesla have different approaches to autonomous driving, with Waymo's current weaknesses potentially becoming strengths to make it a competitor by 2028.
  • Waymo is seeding multiple cities with small numbers of vehicles despite losing billions of dollars, with advantages to this strategy.
• 04:18 🚗 Tesla plans to dominate the robotaxi market by launching its Full Self-Driving technology in multiple US states, potentially covering half the population, and scaling quickly through a broad seeding approach.
  • Tesla's strategy to dominate the robotaxi market involves a seeding approach, starting with cautious deployment in areas like Austin, with a revised estimate that 2,000 robo-taxis won't be reached until Q4 2026.
  • Elon Musk's claim that Tesla will have a large-scale robo-taxi service covering half the US population by 2025 may be exaggerated, with him possibly counting entire states where a small number of robo-taxis are deployed.
  • Tesla could launch commercial robo-taxi operations in 18 self-certifying states without special approval, allowing a potential immediate rollout.
  • Tesla can quickly scale its self-driving technology by launching in multiple states with easy self-certification, potentially covering half the US population, rather than slowly scaling in one city at a time.
  • Tesla's strategy to deploy 40-50,000 robo-taxis by the end of 2026 involves broad seeding across the US, scaling slowly, and validating each city before rapid expansion.
  • Tesla plans to launch its Full Self-Driving technology in 20-30 cities, starting with a few in November and expanding to more by December or early next year, using a strategy of gradual rollout and validation rather than highly detailed mapping.
• 13:30 🚗 Tesla plans to rapidly scale its robotaxi operations by exploiting regulatory loopholes, bypassing traditional phases, and using a "seeding strategy" to gain an edge over Waymo.
  • Tesla plans to scale its robotaxi operations slowly but broadly across multiple cities, starting immediately and taking time to build out infrastructure and learn local conditions, rather than rushing into a few areas and then expanding to others.
  • Tesla bypassed California's regulatory phases for commercial autonomous taxi operations by starting with a safety driver, collecting data, and then progressing to driverless testing with no passengers.
  • Tesla exploited an alternative regulatory pathway by rebranding its autonomous ride-sharing service as a traditional ride-hailing service like Uber, allowing it to operate with a standard license and then utilize Full Self-Driving (FSD) capabilities.
  • Tesla is using a regulatory loophole by collecting data for Phase 1 with safety drivers, while effectively skipping to Phase 3, and deploying driverless robo-taxis in California to collect additional data, aiming to drop safety drivers as early as July next year.
  • Tesla estimates Waymo will need around 500,000 miles in phase two, likely taking them until July, to meet California's regulations, a timeline that seems relatively short compared to Waymo's progress.
  • Tesla uses a "seeding strategy" to accelerate its autonomous driving development without taking on excessive risk and regulatory trouble.
• 21:28 🚗 Tesla's global reach, simpler self-driving car tech, and strategy to rapidly expand across cities may allow it to surpass Waymo, which faces complexity and cost challenges in manufacturing and calibration.
  • Tesla's global reach and existing car production capabilities give it an advantage over Waymo, which is limited to one city and struggles to manufacture and calibrate its highly complex, manually modified cars.
  • Waymo's approach to calibrating and manufacturing self-driving cars is exponentially more complex and costly compared to Tesla's, making it impractical for mass production.
  • Tesla's strategy is to go wide and fast by introducing its service across multiple cities quickly, but keep it small, and then go deep and slow.
  • Waymo's weaknesses, including a bad tech stack and poor leadership, make it vulnerable to being surpassed by Tesla, despite its potential to generate trillions in margin.
  • By 2028, autonomous driving technology will be commoditized by AGI companies like Google, OpenAI, or X AI, not by car manufacturers or Waymo, and will be integrated into highly intelligent systems that can drive cars as a side effect.
• 26:59 🤖 Tesla is poised to dominate the robo-taxi market by 2028 with its end-to-end neural network approach, making it hard for Waymo to catch up.
  • By 2028, autonomous driving technology will be commoditized, allowing Tesla to potentially dominate the robo-taxi market with millions of vehicles, making it difficult for competitors like Waymo to catch up.
  • Waymo needs roughly $50 billion to execute its strategy, but its parent company Google is willing to absorb the losses, anticipating a future shift to more cost-effective technology using AGI.
  • Waymo is likely to switch from lidar to vision-only systems, using neural nets, as they've already researched and tested this technology.
  • Tesla's end-to-end neural network approach to self-driving is seen as the right technical direction, but Waymo's existing validated system, built on classical computer vision, makes it difficult for them to shift towards a more neural network-based approach like Tesla's.
  • Waymo needs to form a joint venture with a major OEM to create a scalable robo-taxi manufacturing line, and execute it quickly, to potentially compete with Tesla.
  • Tesla will win a huge chunk.
• 34:51 🚗 Tesla plans to crush Waymo by scaling its manufacturing to produce a cheaper, competitive robo-taxi product, leveraging AI advancements and massive investment.
  • Tesla can crush Waymo by scaling its manufacturing to produce a cheaper, competitive product, which would cost Waymo $30-40 billion in operational losses and an additional $10 billion.
  • Waymo will be crushed if it fails to develop a scalable robo-taxi hardware platform by mid-next year, as Tesla's robo-taxi will then massively scale and leave Waymo behind.
  • Elon Musk plans to crush Waymo by investing $50 billion in Tesla's autonomous driving technology, leveraging advancements in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to enable cars to learn how to drive using simple camera setups.
  • Tesla plans to let Waymo seed cities with its technology, then switch to its own superior technology when ready.
• 38:39 🤖 Tesla plans to dominate the self-driving market with its neural net model, potentially crushing Waymo unless they develop a scalable hardware platform by 2028-2029.
  • Tesla can crush Waymo if Waymo fails to develop a dedicated, scalable hardware platform by 2028-2029 that can support multi-million car capability.
  • Tesla plans to use a seeding strategy, going wide and fast in multiple cities, then deep and slow in each, to quickly meet regulatory requirements and gain a head start.
  • Many companies, including large Chinese automakers, are switching to neural nets for autonomous driving, indicating that lidar technology is a dead end.
  • Google's continued investment in Waymo, despite losses, is a strategic move to ensure a duopoly in the self-driving market, as no one wants a monopoly, and Tesla's presence will prevent a third player from emerging.
  • Tesla's strategy with their neural net model will make cars self-driving, allowing for various revenue streams beyond just ride-hailing, and ultimately dominating the market.
  • Tesla is well ahead of Waymo and will likely dominate the robo-taxi market, unless a massive technical company like Amazon makes decisive moves by 2026 to catch up.
• 45:36 🤔 The speaker wraps up a discussion on Tesla's potential to compete with Waymo, inviting audience feedback and promoting their own website for Tesla investors.

WatchUrl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2YEndTzznU