Alphabet's Self-Driving Project Finds Ally In Toyota After Elon Musk's 'Way Mo Money' Jibe

Last week, on a post-earnings conference call with analysts, the Tesla CEO shared his thoughts on how Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi would compare with Waymo’s offering.

Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) and Alphabet, Inc.’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) Waymo are in early talks for a collaboration aimed at accelerating autonomous vehicle development and deployment.

The collaboration aims to integrate Waymo’s autonomous driving systems into Toyota’s personally owned vehicles (POVs) and expand Waymo’s robotaxi fleet using the Japanese company’s vehicle platforms.

The partnership comes shortly after Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent swipe at Waymo’s expenditures, specifically those linked to its sensor-rich and lidar-based approach to autonomy.

Tesla, in contrast, is riding ahead with a camera-only technology that is powered by artificial intelligence.

Last week, on a post-earnings conference call with analysts, Musk shared his thoughts on how Tesla’s upcoming robotaxi would compare with Waymo’s offering.

“The issue with Waymo's cars is it costs way more money,” he said, punning on the company’s name. 

“The car is very expensive, made in low-volume,” he said, adding that Tesla cars cost one-fourth or about 20% of what a Waymo costs and are made in very high volume.

“And Waymo decided that an expensive sensor suite is the way to go, even though Google is very good at AI,” Musk added.

The billionaire entrepreneur repeated his “way mo money” joke on social media after Waymo CEO John Krafcik clapped back at Musk, saying Tesla has “never sold a robotaxi ride to a public rider.”

Krafcik added that Tesla had “failed utterly and completely at this [full autonomy] for each of the 10 years they've been talking about it.”

Waymo operates over 250,000 rides weekly in U.S. cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin, with plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C.

The company’s partnership comes amid an intensifying race for autonomous vehicle dominance in the United States, where regulators under the Trump administration are cutting the red tape to boost self-driving technology.

Musk’s Tesla plans to launch its robotaxi operation in Austin, Texas this June and aims for full-scale mass production next year.

On Stocktwits, sentiment for Toyota was ‘extremely bullish’ heading into Wednesday’s market open while Tesla’s was ‘bullish.’

Year to date, Tesla’s stock has lost more than 25% of its value while Toyota shares have fared slightly better with a 0.5% gain.

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