Tesla doesn't spit out full self-driving cars in any number in any quarter, while Waymo is actually operating FSD cars in a limited, but public and commercial, role. So Tesla is still behind.
> However, Tesla is talking about making the tens of thousands cars they are shipping per quarter right now autonomous.
Yes, if one was looking for the industry leader in talking about delivering full self-driving, Tesla would be much more clearly competitive than they are in actually delivering. But talk is cheap.
Waymo last year ordered 20.000 cars from Jaguar Land Rover, then 62.000 cars from Fiat Chrysler, with deliveries apparently starting in 2019 [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/business/waymo-chrysler-m...
Emphasis is mine. What Tesla says, and what ultimately does are very rarely aligned.
However, Tesla is talking about making the tens of thousands cars they are shipping per quarter right now autonomous. We'll see how far they get with this. My guess is that the game for the next five years is going to be convincing regulators that these things are safe enough to allow on the road. Having a lot of cars on the road already will help their argument. Waymo has the same problem but all they can point too is some limited areas in the US where they are driving currently.
Tesla seems to be improving their current products continuously through software updates as well. This adds to their sales pitch: your car will gain capabilities and may even become fully autonomous one day. They've been riding this pitch for years and while they have under-delivered on the end goal, the in between milestones seem pretty interesting.
Two very different strategies.