Tesla vs. Waymo Continued, & Elon Musk's Big 2025 Robotaxi Miss - CleanTechnica

The article discusses the ongoing comparison between Tesla and Waymo in the autonomous vehicle space, highlighting key statements from industry figures. Jeff Dean, Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and involved with Waymo, emphasized Waymo’s extensive and rigorous collection of fully autonomous driving data, noting it as the most advanced large-scale embodied AI application for safe autonomous driving. Dean contrasted this with Tesla’s much smaller reported driverless mileage—about 50,000 miles earlier in the year—compared to Waymo’s nearly 100 million autonomous miles, underscoring the significant gap in real-world autonomous driving experience. Tesla supporters argue that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system, though often supervised by drivers, is rapidly advancing toward true autonomy and could soon surpass Waymo’s mileage. The article also revisits Elon Musk’s ambitious 2023 forecasts for Tesla’s robotaxi service. In July, Musk claimed Tesla would have autonomous ride-hailing available to half of the U.S. population by the end