Tekedra Mawakana, co-chief executive of Alphabet’s self-driving unit Waymo, has questioned whether some autonomous vehicle developers are doing what is necessary to “earn the right to make the roads safer.”
Speaking at the TechCrunch Disrupt event, Mawakana was asked which companies she believed were making roads safer through automation and whether that list included Tesla.
“I don’t know… it actually goes back to the transparency point,” she said. “I don’t know who’s on that list because they’re not telling us what’s happening with their fleets.” She did not name Tesla or any other firm.
The CEO oversees overall company strategy, with a main focus on the commercial scale and deployment of Waymo’s autonomous driving tech.
Her comments follow repeated claims from Elon Musk that no company is currently able to compete with Tesla on autonomy.
The automaker has launched limited robotaxi trials in Austin but does not disclose how many vehicles are operating, how many miles they have driven, or the frequency of human interventions.
Tesla’s pilot program includes a safety operator in the passenger seat, with vehicles featuring two emergency-stop systems — one on the central screen allowing the car to stop in its lane, and another that uses a reprogrammed door button to perform a hard brake.
However, those functions were never proactively communicated by Tesla.
“If you’re going to put vehicles on the road and remove the driver from behind the wheel, it is incumbent upon you to be transparent about what’s happening,” Mawakana said.
“And if you’re not being transparent, then it is my view that you are not doing what is necessary to actually earn the right to make the roads safer,” Waymo co-CEO added.
When asked if Tesla met that standard, she declined to comment, replying, “What do you think?”
The Google subsidiary does not disclose the cost per robotaxi of its fleet, one of the key points when thinking about the capacity to scale the robotaxi business.
The company said last year that the 6th generation robotaxi — built with the Geely Holding Group brand Zeekr — sharply reduces the production costs compared to previous generations.
Waymo says it removed safety operators from its services in 2020 and uses vehicles equipped with LiDAR, radar and high-definition mapping.
The company said earlier this month it will launch autonomous ride-hailing services in London in 2026.
It has also begun pilot rides in Atlanta and integrated its service into Uber’s app in Austin, with further launches planned in Miami and Washington, D.C.
