Waymo and Toyota Team Up to Explore Self-Driving Tech for Personal Cars — Is Tesla Facing a New Threat?

Waymo belonging to Alphabet and the Japanese car giant Toyota concluded a preliminary partnership to explore a new border in autonomous driving: autonomous vehicles held.

The Alliance marks a potential strategic pivot far from the Robotaxi-Seul game book, referring to a future where private consumers could soon have cars integrated into advanced Waymo driver-free technology.

But beyond the immediate technological implications, the announcement sparked a debate on Wall Street and in the automotive technology sector, some analysts now openly requested: does Tesla finally have a real threat in the race for autonomous domination?

Announced Tuesday, the collaboration between Waymo and Toyota aims to “take advantage of Waymo autonomous technology and the expertise of Toyota vehicles to improve new generation vehicles personally”, according to a joint declaration. Although at the start of its formulation, the partnership suggests that Toyota vehicles are potentially integrated into the growing fleet of Waymo, which has already been deployed in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and more recently Austin.

The Waymo CO-PDG, Tekedra Mawakana, said that the partnership could accelerate the ambitions of the two companies in new generation mobility. The idea is not only refined driver assistance systems, but potentially creating fully autonomous vehicles that consumers can have – a concept considered by years.

Divided analysts: Is it Tesla’s competition?

The announcement has not gone unnoticed to Wall Street, where opinions on its meaning suddenly differ. Morgan Stanley, in a note to investors, said that the Waymo-Toyota link is a “major step” and represents “legitimate competition” for Tesla, which has long dominated the story on autonomous driving. The company considers partnership as a strategic alignment that brings together the Google Google cartography infrastructure and the Toyota production scale.

But not everyone is buying in the buzz. Dan Ives, technological analyst at Wedbush Securities and a longtime Tesla Bull, minimized the importance of the ad.

“I do not agree that the Waymo / Toyota is a revolutionary agreement and a threat to Tesla,” said Ives. “Tesla will have the autonomous market in my opinion, and no one can compete with their scale and their scope. It starts in Austin in June, then the autonomous course begins. Key chapter of growth. “

The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, was also typically disdainful, suggesting in a recent call of results that Waymo Robotaxis is too expensive to be produced on a large scale and reaffirming Tesla’s commitment to launch a fully autonomly autonomous driving service by using its Y models Y with the fully autonomous “unleashed” software (FSDD) in June in June in June in June in June in June in June.

Waymo has the head – at least for the moment

However, by several measures, Waymo already has the upper hand with regard to the deployment of the real world. The company now offers more than 250,000 robotaxi walks per week, compared to 200,000 in February. Its Waymo One service is active in four major metropolitan areas – notably Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin – without a human driver at the wheel.

On the other hand, the so-called Tesla self-commissioner software, despite its name, still requires driver supervision and has not yet been validated as safe for fully autonomous operation. In the United States, regulatory organizations have investigated several incidents involving Tesla FSD and automatic pilot, slowing Tesla’s path more to the regulatory approval of a driver-free sales service.

Even alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, recognized last week during the benefit of the first quarter that Waymo did not finalize his long -term commercial model, but underlined “the optionality around personal property” as a promising income way. The Waymo-Toyota partnership seems to be a concrete step in this direction-potentially combining the technological know-how of Silicon Valley with the power of production for the best automaker in Japan.

Not Waymo’s first partnership – but perhaps the most important

Waymo previously collaborated with car manufacturers, notably Jaguar Land Rover, Stelllantis, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai and Geely in China, often resulting from vehicles adapted to Waymo tests or driving fleets. However, these efforts have largely remained limited to the scale.

This Toyota agreement may be different. Toyota is not only the largest car manufacturer in the world by sale, but also a leader in hybrid and electrification platforms – a crucial advantage to develop autonomous energy efficient systems. And unlike the smallest OEMs, Toyota has the ability to scale production on a global scale if the partnership matures beyond the tests.

Waymo said his collaboration with Toyota would not interfere with existing partnerships involving Hyundai and Geely for his Waymo One service. But the initiates of the industry note that this rapprochement could possibly open the door to the personal AVS of the mass market – a Saint Grail that the industry has long driven out but has never reached.

A broader change in the orientation of the industry

Waymo and Toyota’s announcement also echoes a wider change in the automotive industry. Last year, General Motors interrupted its Robotaxi cruise operations after a series of security problems, rather refocusing on the construction of autonomous systems for vehicles for personal use. Ford and Volkswagen have also reduced their investments in Argo AI, citing the difficulty of marketing Robotaxie on a large scale.

Meanwhile, Tesla remains an aberrant value, continuing a vertically integrated approach and relying on camera -based systems, rather than Lidar and Radar technologies used by Waymo and others. Musk rejected Lidar as “useless”, although Tesla’s software has not been revealed in complex urban driving environments without human intervention.

We still do not know if the Waymo-Toyota partnership will produce an autonomous personal vehicle available in the trade. But if this is the case, it would mark a seismic change – both in consumers’ mobility and in Tesla’s grip on the autonomous story.