CES 2026 offered new insights into the self-driving vehicle sector as NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang addressed questions about the company’s recently announced Alpamayo system and its position relative to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD). As carmakers and technology companies increasingly invest in autonomy, understanding where major players diverge in technology and business models becomes more important for both industry stakeholders and the public. The highly anticipated Q&A session provided perspective on competition, collaboration, and evolving approaches in autonomous driving. Given the long-term safety, regulatory, and technological challenges, interest in these distinctions is only expected to grow.
Industry news outlets previously reported on the competition between Tesla’s proprietary FSD and the open-platform offerings by Nvidia, noting periodic statements from Elon Musk about the difficulty of achieving true self-driving capabilities. Early coverage generally speculated on potential head-to-head competition, particularly in data-driven approaches and end-to-end AI models. Updates over the past year have highlighted the divergent paths the two companies are taking; Nvidia is building partnerships and focusing on industry-wide integration, while Tesla continues an integrated product philosophy tightly coupling hardware, data curation, and end-to-end autonomy within its vehicles. These differences have now been clarified more explicitly.
How does Jensen Huang view Tesla’s FSD technology?
Jensen Huang described Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system as highly advanced, acknowledging its years of development and the expansive volume of data it processes. He emphasized Tesla’s approach to designing, training, and simulating FSD as setting a benchmark for the industry. In Huang’s words,
“Tesla’s FSD stack is completely world-class. They’ve been working on it for quite some time.”
Huang also mentioned he personally uses the technology, highlighting its functional effectiveness in his own experience. He characterized the latest generation of FSD as an end-to-end model, cementing Tesla’s leading position in the space.
What separates Nvidia’s Alpamayo from Tesla’s FSD?
According to Huang, the core difference lies in Nvidia’s function as a platform supplier, compared to Tesla’s integrated approach. While Tesla develops and deploys FSD as a closed, vertically integrated solution in its own vehicles, Nvidia’s Alpamayo delivers the underlying AI stack so that automakers and technology firms can build their own solutions.
“Nvidia doesn’t build self-driving cars. We build the full stack so others can,”
Huang stated, highlighting flexibility for Alpamayo customers to adopt selected components or the entire platform. This strategy has attracted partnerships with industry names such as Waymo, XPeng, and Nuro for automotive computing needs.
How does Nvidia’s open platform influence industry adoption?
With open-sourced models and supportive training infrastructure, Nvidia is advancing cooperation across the ecosystem. Huang reiterated that “we’re not a self-driving car company; we’re enabling the autonomous industry,” explaining that Nvidia’s platform serves a wide variety of customers involved in autonomy. He projects that over the coming decade, hundreds of millions of vehicles could see significant autonomous features, attributing industry growth to this collaborative approach.
Examining the contrasting models, Nvidia’s open and modular framework empowers a range of partners to develop custom autonomous capabilities, while Tesla keeps FSD tightly coupled to its brand and vehicles. The two strategies reflect distinct philosophies—one prioritizing widespread industry participation, the other focusing on a proprietary, integrated product ecosystem. For end users and innovators, this leads to diverse choices, as companies weigh between turnkey integration and customizable platforms. Stakeholders in automotive technology may find value in evaluating not only the AI models but also the approaches to partnership, data management, and product delivery. As the market matures, familiarity with these differing strategies will help investors, developers, and consumers navigate an increasingly complex landscape.
