Current Tesla valuation seems to price in that the robotaxi service is going to be available in next few years and that it will be completely transformative and giving the company a stream of tens of billions of dollars of profit each year. In my opinion this is unrealistic.
I'm not going to focus here about the feasibility of the self-driving technology or when it's likely to be available. Let's assume for a moment that Tesla will soon manage to produce a real self driving, level 5, system, suitable for use in robotaxis, where the passenger can be even sleeping the whole time.
Even so, robotaxis are way overhyped. Some people seem to assume that normal Tesla owners will submit their cars to the fleet, but that's completely unrealistic. Replace the comfort of being the sole user of a car for a couple of bucks? Dealing with dirt, waste, wear and tear and damages that inherently come with random people using your car when it is your private car? Never keeping any of your stuff in your car? What about booster seats, take them out everyday? It's just bs it's going to happen. Sure, there will be a lot of robotaxis, when it finally works, but they are going to be purpose operated by taxi companies. So robotaxis are just going to be an upgrade for the existing carsharing and taxi companies.
But some of you may say that orders of magnitude more people are going to use the robotaxi service (so there are going to be a lot more cars in the service as compared to current taxi/carsharing companies fleets) because owning a car will become a rarity, like Elon himself claimed. I don't buy it. Having a car always ready for me to use it, in my garage (so I don't get wet getting to it when it rains), with stuff I want inside, as clean as I want, with low wear and tear – it's a comfort I can currently afford. Why would I want to willingly strip myself of this comfort? Technological progress and economic growth means people gaining more comforts, more possiblities, not less.
What do you think abou robotaxis and Tesla valuation? What else justifies in your view this valuation?
Leave a Reply