Analysts to evaluate robotaxi services offered by various companies. Performance between Google’s Waymo and Tesla was comparable regarding “waiting time and driving behavior,” they stated. On a comparable circuit, the cost for Waymo and Zoox was roughly $14, while Tesla’s cost was “significantly lower” at $6.25, according to analysts. Passengers reported that pick-up and delivery locations were somewhat inconsistent, requiring them to walk to meet vehicles at unusual stopping points.

Overall, the analysts indicated that the “technology experience” in the U.S. and China “feels ready,” despite the fact that both business models and capital intensity “remain unsettled.” In the case of Tesla, the electric vehicle leader’s Full Self-Driving, or FSD, 14.2 robotaxi demonstrated “very impressive” performance in both highway and urban environments, with analysts noting high levels of accuracy and driving confidence.

Considering this, they remarked that it is “hard to understand” why Tesla persists in postponing the expansion of its robotaxi operations in San Francisco or other U.S. cities such as Austin, where the presence of a security driver is no longer necessary. In the state of Nevada, the FSD 14.2 has received authorization to function autonomously, without the need for a human operator. It has been suggested that the necessity of lidar sensors for self-driving vehicles may be a contributing factor to Tesla’s delay in deploying robotaxis on a larger scale. “Since cost is no longer a hurdle, adopting Lidar would appear more as an admission of ‘defeat’ as integrating lidar should not present a significant technical challenge,” the analysts wrote.

Lidar, an acronym for light detection and ranging, assists self-driving and driver-assistance systems in generating a three-dimensional map of the roadway by reflecting light pulses off various objects. Tesla’s electric vehicles do not employ lidars, a technology that CEO Elon Musk has characterized as “expensive appendices.” According to analysts, the potential for Tesla to transform its vehicles equipped with the Hardware 4 platform into a fleet of robotaxis may be “undermine[d]” through the use of lidar.