Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) unit Waymo are among the top companies working to solve autonomous driving, but their approaches remain different.
Focus On Safety
During an interview with Business Insider, Waymo’s vice president of onboard software, Srikanth Thirumalai, argued that the standard for autonomous driving should exceed human capabilities.
“I think the bar is higher than human driving. Given where the technology is right now, the question is what is it going to take for that product to be safe?” he said in the interview.
Reducing Costs, Improving Software Quality
Waymo employs a comprehensive sensor system, including 29 cameras, five lidars, and six radars, to enhance AI perception. Thirumalai highlighted that safety is the primary focus, and the company aims to reduce sensor costs while improving software quality. Waymo plans to reduce the number of sensors in future robotaxi models.
“So you work backwards from that safety bar and say, ‘What does it take to build a safe product?’ And then keep pushing and iterating and innovating to reduce the cost of the sensors, and to improve the quality of the software and how it uses the sensors,” he added.
Thirumalai stated that defining safety standards is crucial, and Waymo evaluates driving scenarios to lower incident rates. Despite striving for safety, he acknowledged that perfection is unattainable, and incidents involving robotaxis are inevitable.
Here’s What Tesla’s Elluswamy Believes
At the ScaledML Conference on January 29, Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of AI, stated that autonomous driving should rely on cameras, similar to human vision. He emphasised that the challenge is more about AI than sensors.
“It’s so obvious you can solve this with cameras. Why wouldn’t you solve with cameras? It’s 2026. The self-driving problem is not a sensor problem, it’s an AI problem. The cameras have enough information already. It’s a problem of extracting the information, which is an AI problem,” he said, according to a clipping of his talk posted on X by Sawyer Merritt.
Ongoing Debate
The debate between Tesla and Waymo over autonomous vehicle technology is not new. In July 2025, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacted sarcastically to a video of a Waymo robotaxi, reigniting the LiDAR versus camera debate. Musk has consistently advocated for a camera-only approach, claiming it enhances safety by turning off radars in Teslas.
Meanwhile, the broader industry is evolving. In January, The Future Fund LLC’s managing director, Gary Black, noted that Tesla won’t be alone in solving autonomy, as Nvidia Corp.’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) Alpamayo technology suggests that unsupervised autonomy will soon be democratised.
In August 2025, Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE:UBER) CEO Dara Khosrowshahi weighed in, stating that achieving “superhuman levels of safety” is crucial, a standard that Waymo has demonstrated is possible.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo courtesy: Shutterstock
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