Musk's Tesla Robotaxi Is Cheaper Than Waymo, But Longer Waiting Times And More Human Drivers Are A Drag, Analysts Say

Tesla Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Robotaxi in Austin is cheaper when compared to its rival, Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Waymo.

2x Cheaper Than Rival

In a new research note released on Thursday, analysts from investment bank Jeffries analyzed ride-hailing services from Tesla and Waymo, taking over 15 rides in a Tesla and over 19 rides in Waymo. Analysts found that Tesla offered just 2 of the 15 rides without a safety driver and that they also failed to book a ride due to unavailability over 25% of the time.

“We found Teslas generally underperformed across KPIs,” the research said, adding that robotaxi rides were offered with heavy discounts compared to Waymo rides. The cars also took suboptimal routes, resulting in longer trip times.

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Tesla’s Robotaxi has been under scrutiny after it reported 5 additional crashes in Austin. The new crashes take the total number of reported incidents from Mid-2025 when the service started, to 14.

While the robotaxi’s progress could be slower than anticipated, a Cybercab was spotted testing on a highway near Chicago days after Musk touted an April production target for the vehicle and a $30,000 price tag.

How Did Waymo Fair?

Waymo, on the other hand, also took suboptimal routes and arrived over 3 minutes later than the prescribed ETA. Analysts also recorded one instance of remote human intervention for Waymo. The price for Waymos was similar to Uber Technologies Inc.’s (NYSE:UBER) UberX rides. Waymo robotaxis in Austin are available only via the Uber platform.

Waymo rides have also been under scrutiny lately as NHTSA announced it was investigating over 3,000 Waymo AVs after multiple accidents involving the company’s vehicles.

Analysts On AVs

“We think AVs have initially relied on hype to help drive adoption. Our work suggests a scaled standalone AV fleet does not have a cost advantage vs. rideshare,” the analysts said in the note.

Analysts also suggested that a hybrid model leveraging both AVs and human-operated vehicles would be the ideal solution as things stand, which could be in line with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s view that robots would drive Ubers in 15-20 years.