Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG) stand-alone unit of Waymo CEO John Krafcik, fired Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) as a competitor in an interview with Germany’s Magazin manager.
What happened: “For us, Tesla is not a competitor at all,” Krafcik told manager Magazin.
“We manufacture a completely autonomous steering system. Tesla is an automaker that is developing a really good driver assistance system, ”informed Business Insider, citing the interview.
The executive stated that the configuration of the Waymo sensor is “much better”.
“It is a mistake to think that you can simply continue to develop a driver assistance system until one day you can magically jump into a fully autonomous steering system,” said Krafcik, according to Business Insider.
Why it matters: The automotive executive said that “the costs of technology are very overestimated” in the case of Waymo, Forbes reported.
Krafcik said the costs of owning one of Waymo’s vehicles were comparable to those of a moderately equipped vehicle Daimler AG (OTC: DDAIF) manufactured Mercedes S-Class sedan.
That vehicle costs almost $ 180,000 in the United States, according to Forbes. Waymo uses LiDAR technology in its vehicles.
Last year, Waymo had said his autonomy strategy was “orders of magnitude more advanced” than the competition – in a joke apparently aimed at Tesla.
This month, Waymo said it would stop referring to the term “autonomous driving” and instead use “deliberate language” in relation to its technology and would call it “fully autonomous driving technology” to differentiate itself from others companies that use the term.
Musk said this month that even if the cost of the dealing sensors were to become zero, Tesla would not use them.
Price action: On Friday, Alphabet Class A shares closed 0.45% higher at $ 1,892.56 and Class C shares closed almost 0.5% higher at $ 1,901.05. On the same day, Tesla shares closed 0.2% higher at $ 846.64 and gained 0.1% in the after-hours session.
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