Elon Musk Challenges Alphabet With Tesla's Robo Taxis As Apple Exits The Self-Driving Car Race After Wasting Billions

In a significant week for the autonomous vehicle industry, tech giants Apple Inc. APPL, Alphabet Inc. GOOGL and Tesla Inc. TSLA have made headlines. Apple has exited the self-driving car race, while Alphabet’s Waymo and Tesla’s robotaxis are making strides in the sector.

Apple has been secretive about its autonomous vehicle initiatives but has hinted at its interest through various actions, such as hiring executives from car manufacturers like Lamborghini and Tesla and acquiring the self-driving startup Drive.ai in 2019. 

"We're focusing on autonomous systems. And clearly, one purpose of autonomous systems are self-driving cars," Apple CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg. "And we sort of see it as the mother of all AI projects. It's probably one of the most difficult AI projects actually to work on and so autonomy is something that's incredibly exciting for us, but we'll see where it takes us."

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The tech giant officially halted the project in February and last week reportedly laid off 600 employees from its self-driving car project, signaling the end of its efforts in this area.

Despite investing billions of dollars over 12 years, the company faced difficulties entering the automotive space, while competitors have made significant progress.

Alphabet’s Waymo has been a leader in self-driving technology. 

“What’s exciting is the progress for the amount we’ve had — when I look at the next six months, 12 months, 18 months, it looks like there’s going to be a lot more progress there. I feel very bullish about it," CEO Sundar Pichai said during an interview with Stanford Graduate School. 

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Waymo launched its first autonomous vehicle in Phoenix in 2015 and has since expanded to San Francisco, with plans to reach Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. The company has partnered with Uber Technologies Inc. to offer autonomous rides and food delivery in Phoenix.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on X that the company's robotaxis are set to be unveiled in August. Musk first mentioned a fully autonomous car in 2019, when he said, "By the middle of next year, we'll have over a million Tesla cars on the road with full self-driving hardware." 

While Tesla did not achieve that goal, it offers an advanced driver assistance system with Autopilot and a premium full self-driving option.

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