Gary Black Believes Tesla Won't Be the Only One to Achieve Autonomy Following Nvidia's Alpamayo Announcement: 'Anticipate Rapid Widespread Adoption of Unsupervised Autonomy'

Nvidia's Autonomous Driving Tech Challenges Tesla's Lead

Gary Black, managing director at Future Fund LLC, recently commented that Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) will not be the sole player in the race for fully unsupervised autonomous driving. His remarks followed Nvidia Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NVDA) unveiling of its Alpamayo AI platform for self-driving vehicles, signaling increased competition in the sector.

Growing Competition in Self-Driving Technology

On social media platform X, Black noted that many were skeptical when he previously suggested that Tesla’s competitors would also achieve breakthroughs in autonomous driving. He pointed out that more than five companies now offer Robotaxi services, collectively completing around 750,000 paid, unsupervised autonomous rides each week. Black further highlighted that Nvidia’s open-source Alpamayo technology could enable additional companies to launch Level 4 autonomous vehicles as early as this year.

Alpamayo, introduced at CES 2026, has been described by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as a pivotal moment for physical AI, akin to ChatGPT’s impact on language models. The system leverages a vision-language-action (VLA) framework, integrating radar, cameras, and LiDAR to achieve advanced, human-like reasoning capabilities.

“Investors are beginning to realize that unsupervised autonomy is quickly becoming a standard expectation for all automakers,” Black observed.

Autonomous Driving Becomes More Accessible

Black also predicted that Uber Technologies Inc. (NYSE: UBER) could soon introduce Robotaxi services at lower prices once regulatory standards for autonomous vehicles are established. He believes that ride-hailing platforms will play a key role in making autonomous driving widely available, stating, “Unsupervised autonomy will likely become accessible to the masses through ride-hailing apps in the near future.”

In 2026, Uber and Lyft Inc. (NASDAQ: LYFT) partnered with Baidu Inc.’s (NASDAQ: BIDU) Apollo Go Robotaxi service in London. Meanwhile, Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL, GOOG) Waymo is also preparing to expand its autonomous taxi operations into the city, intensifying competition in the European market.

Elon Musk Responds to Nvidia’s Entry

After Nvidia revealed its self-driving platform, Elon Musk commented that distributing such technology at scale could be a significant hurdle for the chipmaker. Tesla’s AI chief, Ashok Elluswamy, echoed Musk’s concerns. Musk also estimated that it may take five to six years before Nvidia’s Alpamayo could pose a serious challenge to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) system.

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