alt Hacker NewsYep. Especially when one of the brands is Tesla.
Once Elon put himself at the epicenter of American political life, Tesla stopped being treated as a brand, and more a placeholder for Elon himself.
Waymo has excellent branding and first to market advantage in defining how self-driving is perceived by users. But, the alternative being Elon's Tesla further widens the perception gap.
I think the Tesla brand and the Elon brand have always been attached at the hip. This was fine when the Elon brand was "eccentric founder who likes memes, wants to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and plans to launch a Mars colony." It only became a marketing problem when he went down the right wing rabbit hole and started sieg heiling on stage.