Elon Musk says Tesla still has years of breathing room before Nvidia’s push into self-driving technology becomes a real competitive threat.
The comments came after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveiled a new AI model called Alpamayo, designed to help automakers accelerate the rollout of robotaxi services. Announced at CES, the system is meant to bring more advanced “reasoning” into autonomous vehicles — helping them handle rare and unpredictable driving situations that don’t appear often in training data.
While the announcement immediately sparked talk of Nvidia challenging Tesla’s dominance in self-driving, Musk downplayed the impact. Responding to questions on X, the Tesla CEO said that even with Nvidia’s tools, it would take five to six years — and likely longer — before competitors could match Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system in real-world safety and scale.
Musk argued that the hardest part of autonomy isn’t getting to “mostly works,” but solving what engineers call the long-tail problem — the small percentage of edge cases that are rare but critical, like unusual road layouts, unexpected pedestrian behavior, or complex weather conditions. “It’s easy to get to 99%,” Musk wrote, “but incredibly hard to solve the last 1%.” He added that Tesla is already focused on exactly that challenge.
Beyond software, Musk also pointed to hardware as a major bottleneck for rivals. He said it would take several more years for automakers to install advanced camera systems and AI computers across their fleets at scale — something Tesla has already been doing for years. In his view, Nvidia may provide strong tools, but the auto industry is still far behind in executing a full, end-to-end autonomous strategy.
Nvidia, meanwhile, says Alpamayo is built to close that gap. The company claims its open-source AI models help vehicles make human-like judgments in situations that traditional training data can’t cover, making autonomous driving more adaptable and safer over time. Nvidia also announced that Mercedes-Benz will be the first major automaker to adopt its self-driving platform, with plans to launch it in the new CLA sedan in the US in early 2026. The system will allow point-to-point autonomous driving, though it will still require human supervision — similar to Tesla’s current Full Self-Driving setup.
For Musk, though, the long-term vision hasn’t changed. He continues to tie Tesla’s future to robotaxis and Full Self-Driving, arguing that autonomy will be the key to turning Tesla into the world’s most valuable company and reversing slowing vehicle sales. FSD is also central to Musk’s massive compensation package, with milestones like reaching 10 million subscriptions tied to unlocking the full payout.
Nvidia’s ambitions could eventually complicate that roadmap. The chip giant plans to power robotaxi fleets for partners and license its technology to automakers, potentially allowing them to skip building their own self-driving systems from scratch. But for now, Musk remains confident that Tesla’s years of data, in-house AI hardware, and focus on real-world edge cases give it a lead that won’t disappear anytime soon.