In June 2025, a historic moment in the field of autonomous driving will arrive on the streets of the United States - $Alphabet-A (GOOGL.US)$ / $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ Waymo's $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ Robotaxi service will face direct competition for the first time. This competition, regarded by the industry as a "watershed moment for the commercialization of autonomous driving", is not only the ultimate battle of technical routes but also signifies that the global transportation Industry is at a critical point of structural transformation.
Tesla officially announces trial operation milestones: aggressive expansion VS safety first.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk disclosed on the X platform on the evening of June 10 that its Robotaxi service is tentatively set to start its first public trial operation on June 22, and he especially emphasized that "safety takes precedence over the schedule," with the date possibly adjusted based on testing progress. More groundbreaking is Musk's announcement that on June 28, Tesla cars will achieve fully automated delivery from the factory to users, which means its pure vision solution will face the ultimate test on real roads.
According to the plan, Tesla will initially deploy 10-20 Robotaxis in Austin, Texas, and through a "running while iterating" model, plans to expand the fleet size to thousands of vehicles within a few months. Although remote safety support is still needed in the early stages, Musk's ambition is aimed at a "million-vehicle OTA (over-the-air update) deployment," attempting to realize rapid cross-city generalization through the data flywheel effect.
Waymo builds a safety moat: Tens of millions of operation data fortify the barriers.
In the face of Tesla's aggressive push, Waymo chooses to respond with a "steady and steady" strategy. Relying on a multi-source fusion solution with LiDAR, millimeter-wave radar, and visual sensors, combined with the "Digital Twin" system built with high-precision maps, it maintains an industry-leading safety record.
It is worth noting that Waymo has achieved large-scale unmanned operation through a "city-specific strategy" map reconstruction mechanism. Data shows that its weekly order volume surged from 0.01 million orders in August 2023 to 0.25 million orders in May 2025, approaching traditional Online Car-hailing in the San Francisco market with a pricing of $6 per mile, and its market share is catching up to Lyft. This gradual expansion sacrifices speed but forms an irreproducible technological barrier through the accumulation of Beijing Vastdata Technology.
Technical route debate: Systems engineering faction vs. data flywheel faction.
This confrontation is essentially a collision of two technological philosophies:
The systems engineering faction represented by Waymo: relying on multi-sensor redundancy design and high-precision maps, achieves safety redundancy through "hardware stacking + scenario exhaustiveness," like fitting autonomous driving with "multiple insurances".
Tesla advocates for the "data flywheel faction: attempting to let algorithms learn autonomously from Beijing Vastdata Technology through "end-to-end AI training" using only visual sensors and neural networks, similar to training machines in a "sea of questions" to master driving logic.
The industry points out that Tesla's program has significant cost advantages (with single-vehicle hardware costs over 40% lower than Waymo), but its ability to handle complex scenarios such as heavy rain and construction zones remains controversial; while Waymo is safer, it faces challenges of outdated map updates and costs related to cross-city expansion.
The eve of a trillion-dollar market: the reconstruction of the travel ecosystem is in progress.
ArkInvest's latest report predicts that by 2030, the global Robotaxi market will exceed 10 trillion dollars, driving the shift of travel models from "asset ownership" to "service subscription." When the cost per mile drops to the critical point of 0.25 dollars, urban spaces will experience disruptive change: the demand for parking spaces may plummet by 60%, commuting time will transform into productive value, and Cars will evolve from mere transportation tools to "mobile smart terminals."
Goldman Sachs Securities, in a research report released on Tuesday, strongly supports Tesla, pointing out its two core advantages: the customized chip architecture reduces hardware costs by 35%, and the end-to-end AI training model enables "inference-based adaptation" to new environments, rather than relying on preset programs. The firm predicts that the U.S. Robotaxi market will expand at a compound annual growth rate of 90%, reaching a scale of 7 billion dollars by 2030, with the number of commercial vehicles surging from 1,800 at the end of 2025 to 35,000.
As driverless fleets begin to take over urban roads, this competition has long transcended the realm of commercial rivalry. Choosing a transportation tool is not just about mobility; it is also a vote for a "driverless trust system"—whether to trust a safety net constructed by precise systems engineering or the evolution power driven by data? This marathon concerning the future will ultimately reveal how humanity and machines co-build a new order of urban mobility.
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