Musk says Tesla beats Waymo at self-driving tech after Krafcik criticises it

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Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to respond to a dis by another autonomous car company executive.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik last week told German’s Manager Magazin that Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving provide a “really good driver-assist system,” but can’t be compared to what his Google-backed outfit is developing, which is "orders of magnitude better."

Waymo is currently operating a fleet of autonomous ride-hailing test vehicles in the Phoenix area. (Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images)

“It is a misconception that you can just keep developing a driver assistance system until one day you can magically leap to a fully autonomous driving system,” Krafcik said.

“In terms of robustness and accuracy, for example, our sensors are orders of magnitude better than what we see on the road from other manufacturers.”

UPDATE: WAYMO HAS NOW POSTED ITS OWN, SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT WORDING OF KRAFCIK'S QUOTES FROM ITS RECORD OF THE INTERVIEW TO TWITTER

Musk, whose company has rejected some of the more expensive sensor equipment that most autonomous car companies like Waymo use, specifically lidar, in favor of a stronger reliance on cameras, sarcastically rejected Krafcik’s position.

“To my surprise, Tesla has better AI hardware & software than Waymo (money),” Musk wrote.

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Waymo is developing its technology primarily for use in a company-operated ride-hailing system and for delivery trucks, while Musk aims to launch full autonomy in Tesla’s customer cars and currently charges $10,000 for the system, which is not yet fully functional.

Musk, whose personal car is equipped with the latest prototype version of the software that’s in development, claimed to have been driven to and from a location by it in Los Angeles last Friday without having to take the wheel at all.