The robotaxis in Austin are learning to share the streets with each other — or they’re trying to anyway.
A recent viral video depicting a Waymo vehicle navigating around a stopped Cybercab on an Austin street and cautiously moving forward only to find a Zoox vehicle in its path, is drawing amusement online.
“This is a perfect storm. They don’t know what to do,” an observer said in the video as another vehicle blares its horn.
Waymo, owned by Google parent company Alphabet Inc., has more than 1,200 vehicles in Texas, while Tesla Inc. has 970. Amazon’s Zoox has more than a dozen purpose-built robotaxis registered in Texas ahead of its upcoming service launch. As the three services expand, their vehicles are bound to cross paths — a scene that calls to mind the popular Spider-Man meme of the three characters pointing at one another, as if to accuse the other of being at fault.
As the video made the rounds on social media, Tesla was actively promoting its robotaxi services during the traffic-dense F1 weekend. The Austin automaker expanded its services to include the area near Circuit of the Americas. Meanwhile, Waymo had its own service expansion weeks prior when it began offering rides on freeways in Austin.
None of the three companies immediately responded to requests for comment Monday afternoon.
Some attendees noted prices upwards of $75 for a Tesla Robotaxi ride from the racetrack to Downtown Austin, far from the 30 cents per mile target Tesla has previously set. On an earnings call last week, company leaders said they see a path to reaching that pricing, saying the company has to scale and dial in operational costs such as cleaning. Over time, CEO Elon Musk seems confident that consumers will choose Tesla over other options.
“I think Tesla will end up being a majority of all passenger miles on Earth in any country where it is allowed to operate freely,” Musk said. “And you can come back and look at this prediction, but I feel confident about this prediction.”