Elon Musk takes shot at Waymo boss for doubting Tesla's full self-driving system

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has countered recent remarks by CEO of Google’s self-driving unit Waymo that the US EV maker has taken a misguided approach to developing fully autonomous cars.

Taking to Twitter, Elon Musk took a counter-barb at Waymo chief saying that Tesla has better hardware and software than the self-driving car unit to attain full self-driving system. Musk wrote, "To my surprise, Tesla has better AI hardware & software than Waymo (money)."

Earlier, John Krafcik, the chief executive officer of Waymo, had said, “It is a misconception that you can simply develop a driver-assistance system further until one day you can magically jump to a fully autonomous driving system."

Krafcik’s barb was aimed at Autopilot, which has stoked controversy since Tesla first introduced the suite of driver-assistance features in 2014. The electric-car maker has been criticised for how it has branded its system while still requiring that users be fully attentive and ready to grab the wheel at any time.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in December he was “extremely confident" Tesla will offer full autonomy to customers in some jurisdictions this year. He’s made similar claims in the past, including in April 2019, when he predicted Tesla would have more than 1 million cars on the road by the middle of 2020 that wouldn’t require drivers to be attentive.

Krafcik said he doesn’t consider Tesla a competitor in driverless vehicles, telling Manager Magazin that it’s “developing a really good driver-assistance system."