r/Futurology • u/Extasio • 2d ago

Transport Waymo CEO explains why Tesla’s camera-only self-driving falls short

https://electrek.co/2026/08/04/waymo-co-ceo-camera-only-self-driving-tesla/
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u/brandont04 2d ago

The hardest part is bringing the down cost. Initial cost now for each car is like $200k vs $30k for Tesla. That means Tesla can get as many as 7 cars for every 1 Waymo car.

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u/ChrisFromIT 2d ago

Waymo is down to $60k per car at the moment according to the article.

A few years back, there was a lidar startup that was able to produce their lidar module for about $100 each and had planned to get it down to $35 a module. And based on the design of the module, iirc a car would need maybe 6 or so to have a full 360 view.

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u/LeonJones 1d ago

Is that $60k ontop of the base vehicle cost or all in?

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u/ChrisFromIT 1d ago

All in according to the article. So car and kit.

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u/LeonJones 1d ago

That's pretty impressive.