Waymo robotaxis are too expensive to scale Waymo’s business quickly, beating competition. If Trump succeeds in blocking Chinese robots from entering the USA, Tesla’s robots are the only robots that could win the race to produce robotaxi in the USA in reasonable time.
Scalability Advantage: Tesla's strategy relies on a camera-only "vision" approach and its massive manufacturing capacity, which allows for a potentially much cheaper and faster scaling process compared to rivals. Musk has often touted the potential for existing Tesla vehicles to become robotaxis via software updates, creating a vast data collection network and a path to high volume production.
Waymo's Challenges
High Costs: Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, faces challenges with the high cost of its sensor- and lidar-heavy vehicles, which are estimated to cost between $130,000 and $200,000 each, plus the cost of the base vehicle. This cost structure makes rapid scaling of its business more difficult compared to Tesla's lean approach.
Regulatory & Supply Chain Issues: The Biden administration has implemented final rules to effectively ban the sale or import of connected vehicles (including self-driving software and hardware) from "countries of concern," such as China. This ruling directly affects Waymo's plans to use vehicles manufactured by Geely's Zeekr for its next-gen robotaxi fleet, potentially disrupting its expansion.
Competitive Landscape: The U.S. government's actions against Chinese-made autonomous technology could effectively remove a significant portion of international competition for domestic companies like Tesla and Waymo.
Potential Trillion-Dollar Market: The race is for a global market analysts estimate could be worth trillions of dollars. The company that can dominate this space first stands to gain immense advantages in data dominance, manufacturing scale, and smart city integration.
Tesla's Domestic Position: If import restrictions tighten under this administration (such as Trump presidency, which is speculated to favor deregulation for U.S. companies), Tesla, as a largely U.S.-focused manufacturer with a vision-based system that avoids reliance on potentially restricted foreign components, could be in a strong position to lead the domestic market in the "race to produce robotaxi in the USA".
While Waymo is currently the commercial leader in terms of fully driverless miles and number of operational areas, Tesla's manufacturing scale and potential regulatory environment favor a significant long-term impact on the U.S. economy and the future of transportation, including the fact that robotaxi data is used to train the humanoid Optimus.
“Tesla will double the number of robotaxis in Texas in December, less than six months after it launched the service.
Chief Executive Elon Musk said Tuesday in a post on X that the fleet in Austin, Texas, "should roughly double next month."
Tesla rolled out its self-driving taxi service in Austin in June, though the robotaxis have a person in the driver's seat for safety.
Musk said on Tesla's earnings call last month that the company plans to do away with safety drivers in parts of Austin by the end of this year.
"Our goal is to be actually paranoid about deployment because obviously, even one accident will be front-page headline news worldwide," Musk said on the call.
"We do expect to be operating robotaxis in I think about eight to 10 metro areas by the end of the year," the CEO added.” [1]
1. Business News: Tesla Plans to Double Austin Robotaxi Fleet. Kao, Kimberley. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 28 Nov 2025: B4.
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