Tesla's financial challenges deepened Wednesday with a sharp drop in second-quarter earnings and revenue, underscoring a tough year marked by falling sales, brand challenges, and growing competition.
Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving unit, has pulled ahead in the robotaxi race, reporting a fivefold surge in rides over the past year to 250,000 paid trips per week as of April. However, as Tesla prepares its autonomous ride-hailing service, Waymo now faces pressure to scale faster and reduce costs, beginning with how its vehicles are manufactured.
With the US and China rapidly advancing in autonomous vehicle (AV) technology and aggressively expanding their global footprint, South Korea's auto industry is feeling the pressure and urgently reassessing its competitive edge. For many here, the key battleground is no longer hardware or talent alone, but data sovereignty.
Hyundai Motor, South Korea's largest automaker, has announced plans to release its first production vehicle equipped with end-to-end (E2E) autonomous driving technology by 2027. The company also aims to launch a fully integrated software-defined vehicle (SDV), powered by artificial intelligence and cloud-based services, by 2028.
On June 22, Tesla officially launched its first robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, inviting select passengers to participate in trial rides, marking what CEO Elon Musk called the company's entry into the commercial era of fully autonomous driving. The announcement quickly drew global media attention and was widely interpreted as a direct challenge to Waymo, the long-time leader in the US robotaxi market.
