Tesla Robotaxi vs. Waymo One Comparison Test! Which Self-Driving Taxi Feels Safer?

Motor Trend

a day ago

It's really a simple question. Would you, or would you not, feel comfortable letting the robots take the wheel? Just sit down inside a car, set a destination, and let the thing take you there—navigating busy downtowns, pedestrians, unexpected lane closures, and whatever else the mean streets throw at drivers every day.
Today, the biggest player in the self-driving car space—at least among robotaxis—is Waymo, which has had services running in various cities around the nation since 2017. The ride-hailing service expanded into a more publicly available realm in recent years after starting out with more limited ridership, but the basics are this: Waymo, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has been ferrying passengers without human drivers for nearly a decade. And that doesn't include eight years of development prior.
In most cities where Waymo operates, riders hail one of the driverless cars via the company's own app; in some newer locations, namely Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia (and, next year, Dallas), Waymos are fewer in number—and simply mixed into the potential options you might get randomly paired with otherwise from Uber's rideshare app. (More on that later.)
The much newer entrant to the space is Tesla. Though it has been promising driverless robotaxis for years, it only just began fielding a small fleet of slightly modified Model Ys in its adopted hometown of Austin, Texas. So far, only company insiders or folks the company has granted special access to a still-in-development app can call and ride in a Robotaxi within a suggestively shaped area of Austin. You can find the image of the service area online and judge for yourself whether it looks like a tall, skinny cowboy hat—like the Arby's logo—or something more penile. But just remember that Tesla CEO Elon Musk's sense of humor skews … adolescent.
Anyway, with Waymo and Tesla both operating in overlapping zones of Austin, what better opportunity to see how the Robotaxi lines up to the current standard in autonomous ride-hailing services, Waymo? After all, Waymo is a 2025 MotorTrend Best Tech awardee for self-driving ride sharing. The Test That Tested Us
Our plan was to show up in Austin armed with the Uber app and Tesla's unfinished Robotaxi app, to which we were invited by Tesla, on our smartphones, and to start hailing rides on both services. Ideally, this story's author and MotorTrend Technical Director Frank Markus would each select one of the services (so, Tesla for me, Waymo for Frank), hail a ride from the same spot, and set the same destination. It wouldn't be a race, since there was little guarantee we could line up a Tesla Robotaxi and a Waymo (in Austin, these are all Jaguar I-Paces with funny-looking Lidar arrays and sensors all over them) after somehow nabbing one of each at the same time.
Instead, the idea was to try and simply trace similar routes in each car on the same day, studying whether one took a different or better route to the same destination. This proved unusually difficult because, despite Waymos literally crawling all over downtown Austin, often two or three at a time passing our team while we had the Uber app open and were trying to catch rides, we struggled to catch one.
We blew an entire morning hailing Ubers—and summarily rejecting the human-driven cars the algorithm paired us with, often the same drivers over and over (sorry, everyone!). Waymo representatives did not juice the system at all on our behalf, both in order to keep things realistic and because it was apparently functionally not possible to do so, but they did offer several tips to increase our chances of landing a Waymo ride. None seemed to work, whether it be ensuring a setting for openness to an autonomous ride was selected to ordering only UberX, Comfort, Green, and Comfort Electric rides, which was said to up our chances of capturing a Waymo.
We later found out that despite doing nearly everything 'right' while being teased by a comically endless stream of Waymo Ones passing by us in person—including while we were riding in Tesla Robotaxis and standing outside the hub where Waymos go to charge up their batteries(!)—we had been inadvertently neutering our chances by selecting destinations whose ideal routes included highway driving, something neither the Waymo or Tesla Robotaxi is capable of right now. Every trip, therefore, must happen off-highway, on arterial and city streets.
Since Uber is administering the rides, its algorithm doesn't allow for Waymo-hunters like ourselves any special treatment; it therefore prioritizes riders' time, pairing them to the vehicle that would get them to their destination quickest—so if a highway gets you there faster, you're not getting a Waymo in Austin or, presumably, Atlanta. Looking to maximize our experiences in both robotaxis, we had been setting destinations at the farthest edges of the service areas—longer rides that, uncoincidentally, often could be done faster using highways.
That useful tidbit about our likely routes came too late, however; we were only in Austin for one day. The only trip we were able to get landed just as we left lunch at Austin's famed Terry Black's Barbeque, where we'd stuffed our bellies while jealously watching Waymo after Waymo pick up and drop off riders in the restaurant's parking lot. Unbeknownst to us then, the destination we'd selected just happened to have an ideal route that lacked any highway travel.
Tesla similarly disallows its Robotaxis from prowling Austin's freeways, but since the cars are hailed via the company's own app, we had no issues landing rides. This is also because, while the app is Tesla's, essentially no one is using it outside of its own employees and a limited group of external invitees. In other words, whether Robotaxis will be so easy to get once the service moves into a more public phase is an open question. We're told there are far fewer Robotaxis operating in Austin, only about 20 or so, compared to the hundred-plus Waymos on offer; even so, a Robotaxi was never more than 10 minutes away, seemingly. So, What's It Like to Ride the Robotaxi?
Our first experiences of the day came in the Robotaxi. Frank and I both hailed them after striking out with Waymo, and both arrived promptly within about 10 or 15 minutes. Our starting point was a park in east Austin selected primarily for its location between the 'hubs' where Waymo and Tesla keep their vehicles during operational downtime (such as charging) and downtown Austin and the meat of both taxis' service areas. Our destination was a circular driveway on the University of Texas' campus, a few miles across town.
Robotaxis will wait up to 15 minutes at a pickup point for the rider to enter, close the door, and initiate the journey via their app or the Model Y's rear-seat touchscreen. We used most of that time to photograph the car; holding the car in place was easy, if slightly awkward, as every Robotaxi comes with a safety chaperone sitting in the front passenger seat. The handler just had to, well, sit there while our photographer captured both my Robotaxi and the one that had arrived for Frank and pulled up just behind it in the park's parking lot.
Speaking of that parking lot, we had hailed the Robotaxis from our parked car near the parking lot's entrance off the adjacent street. When the Teslas arrived, however, they drove about 200 feet past us to a seemingly random patch of the lot to wait. Odd drop-off and pickup points turned out to be a common theme among our rides in Robotaxis throughout the day; they never quite landed where you'd expect them to, and often you needed to walk a little bit to catch one or reach your ultimate destination after being dropped off.
Now, the distances for our first journey we're about to list depend on which app was used to measure it. Google Maps pegged our trip at 5.9 miles, mostly because its suggested route dipped south before taking us directly west to I-35, which would jet us north to, essentially, our destination. But remember, Tesla doesn't allow for highway routes, so the Robotaxi worked out a 4.41-mile route that, frankly, was more direct than the I-35 option, albeit solely on surface streets. The trip ended up taking 16 minutes—exactly the same as Google Maps' estimate for the highway route.
The trip itself proved uneventful. After settling into the Model Y's rear seat and pressing the button on the rear-seat touchscreen to 'START RIDE,' the Tesla pulled a quick U-turn and made for the parking lot's exit. Curiously, though there was no cross traffic at the time, the Robotaxi sailed out of the lot and hung a right onto the street without stopping; we noticed there was no stop sign there, but just before the street was a running / biking path. No pedestrians or cyclists were present, so the Tesla's move came without harm, but crossing a wide sidewalk without stopping or slowing seemed like an unnecessary risk for an experimental self-driving car to take.
That would prove to be the most noteworthy part of the trip, during which the Robotaxi smoothly stopped, accelerated, turned, and navigated its way to our set destination. Granted, we didn't encounter any strange traffic incidents, such as someone running a red light or doing anything unexpected that would force the Tesla to react. But overall, nothing weird happened, the Robotaxi drove normally (even exceeding the speed limit to match flow-of-traffic pace, about 5 mph faster than the posted limit).
The entire ride, an estimated time of arrival was displayed on the rear-seat screen, and if I had any music apps that worked with Tesla's system, I could have set my own music to play through the speakers. There also controls for setting the climate control temperature and a map showing the trip's progress, as well as buttons to request the car pull over and for 'support.' Most of these functions are repeated in the Tesla Robotaxi app, as well. Conditionally, and only ahead of the trip, the app also shows buttons for honking the horn, flashing the lights, unlocking the doors, and opening the trunk—useful for locating and entering the Robotaxi when it picks you up.
Frank's ride on the same route at virtually the same time, in a different Robotaxi, went just as smoothly. However, rides taken the night before suffered more notable issues, including a false start of sorts that required a brief wait, followed by an explanatory call from Tesla HQ (via the Robotaxi's speakers) and, in short order, the ride continuing on as normal. Subsequent trips in Robotaxis were mostly flawless, save for one instance when a Robotaxi slammed on the brakes in the face of a green light; luckily no one was behind the Tesla at the time, and it quickly got underway again and made it through the intersection. What Is It Like to Ride in the Waymo?
Setting aside our all-day effort just to catch a single ride in a Waymo, which was irritating, the entire experience is slicker than the Robotaxi. It'd be even more so if we'd been able to hail one via the Waymo app, as we have in other cities where Waymo operates. As it is, nabbing a Waymo through Uber feels like a surprise gift. We all practically jumped for joy upon finally getting one as we were leaving Terry Black's Barbeque in downtown Austin, though the weight of our meaty lunch kept us earthbound for the moment.
When the Waymo arrived a mere minute after we were matched with it, it pulled into the Terry Black's parking lot and stopped exactly where the Uber app had placed a pin on our phone's on-screen map. The backlit spinning Lidar unit on the roof displayed my initials—AS—a helpful add-on given we watched several other Waymos drop off and pick up fellow Terry Black customers during our lunch. Like the Tesla app, the Uber app sprouted a contextual screen with instructions on how to unlock and enter our Waymo and open the trunk, a reminder that our initials would be on the roof, its license plate number, and where it would pick us up.
The waiting period during which the Waymo would sit around before we got in was much shorter, just seven minutes, and the suggested route matched Google Maps' exactly, both in route and timing. As in the Tesla, riders can initiate their ride using a rear-seat display screen or their phones, but the Waymo's interface is more thorough. The difference, if you can believe it, is that the Waymo's rear seat display is in a vehicle that only autonomously delivers passengers, rather than a mostly normal Tesla Model Y that's been modified for the same purpose.
A friendly narrator walked us through the vehicle's features and how to use them while everything was illustrated on the display. In the Tesla, all such notations were on-screen in text form only. Waymo's screen also gives riders a more interesting map view that mimics the Tesla's front-seat display, with an animated Waymo on an animated facsimile of the road you're currently traveling on, surrounded by digital recreations of surrounding traffic. Overlaid on that view is a bar with music controls and the same 'pull over' and 'support' options you find in the Tesla, albeit more clearly visible. More detailed menus (including climate controls) are accessible via a flyover panel that opens with the touch of a button on the right side of the display.
The riding experience itself differed from the Robotaxi, with the Waymo exhibiting more assertive driving but, curiously, a stricter adherence to speed limits. Oh, and you're alone in the Waymo—there is no monitor in the front seat.
Pulling out of Terry Blacks, the Waymo leapt across two eastbound lanes and a center turn lane, directly into the nearest of the two westbound lanes, even with westbound traffic approaching in the far lane. It was a gap that a human driver might easily have missed while whipping their head left to right and back again to check before moving—but because the Waymo has a 360-degree Lidar-provided view at all times of surrounding traffic, objects, and the road itself, it didn't need to hesitate.
Remember, the Waymo has a complex array of Lidar, radar, and sonar sensors, as well as comprehensive real-world mapping behind its thinking; Tesla's Robotaxi uses, well, a relatively crude and smaller array of cameras. To say we felt more confident sitting in the Waymo is an understatement, given its multiple redundancies in spacial recognition.
This was reinforced when about halfway through our 4.7-mile ride, a car whose driver either didn't pay attention to cross traffic or blithely ignored our Waymo's trajectory exited a strip mall, crossing directly in our path leaving little time for our car to react. The Waymo smoothly but quickly swerved into an adjacent lane to avoid a collision. Again, we'd have tried checking our blind spot before pulling such a move, or strongly considered simply standing on the brakes, but the all-seeing Waymo knew it had the space and, it seemed, that this maneuver would be less exciting for us passengers than a full anti-lock-brake-activating panic stop.
Accelerating from a stop and slowing to a stop were actions noticeably more deliberate than in the Robotaxi. A digital chauffeur this is not, but we'd say the driving style—perfectly executed evasions and leaps into gaps in traffic aside—largely mimicked your average rideshare driver in a mild hurry.
The ride ended as professionally as it started, with audible reminders that the trip was drawing to a close and to gather your belongings, and instructions on how to exit the car again joined by helpful on-screen illustrations. It cost us $5.97 (after a 40-percent-off promo was applied), and, like with the Robotaxi, there was no option for a tip. So Which Is Better?
Assuming the experience of actually hailing a Waymo improves in Austin—it's much better elsewhere, in places that rely on the Waymo app itself and are more established fleets—the Waymo One remains number one in autonomous ride-hailing services. The end-to-end user experience is better, and the technology seems more trustworthy and safer, with better redundancies and more development miles than Tesla's newer, less sophisticated (hardware-wise) setup.
We must give credit to the Robotaxi's driving skills, which, when the cars weren't suffering small computer snits, proved smoother and less robotic than the Waymo. Though the Robotaxis were never particularly challenged during our rides the way our Waymo was—twice, by errant traffic—the tuning feels right on, with a natural driving demeanor. On the other hand, you're reminded of the Robotaxi's early-days phase by the included safety monitor in the front seat, and we just couldn't shake the myriad hangups with the underlying technology, which is shared with Tesla's Full Self Driving (Supervised) software that we've found woefully inadequate even as a driver aid, let alone the sole pilot—which it is in the Robotaxis. With more development time and geofenced, limited areas of operation, we expect Tesla's autonomous cab service to improve, but as of right now, it hasn't yet caught the segment leader in Waymo. 2nd Place: Tesla Robotaxi Pros Easy to hail (for now)
Onboard attendant
Bright and airy Model Y cabin Cons Underlying technology still makes unnerving mistakes
Attendant isn't in driver's seat
User interface lacking
Verdict: A solid experimental effort that needs a lot of work to inspire confidence. 1st Place: Waymo One Pros Slick in-car interface
Reassuring development rigor
Flawless operation Cons Needing to rely on Uber app in various markets
Jaguar I-Pace taxi feels dark
At-times aggressive driving
Verdict: Waymo's been doing this for a while, and it shows.