Deklomalo 3 days ago

Tesla is already valued 9x higher than uber.

Uber makes money on every ride.

Teslas Robotaxi has to be cheaper than a taxi with a human and i don't think they will be able to have a lot higher revenue per ride than uber. Not 9x

And if Tesla starts to deliver a robotaxi, all of this revenue has to be shared between taxis, uber, Tesla, Waimo, Zoox, Rimac, Cruise, Baidu, WeRide, ...

So how huge is the market for Tesla to be valuated 9x higher than Uber?

We can even combine a big car company, a robotics company, a solar roof company, battery storage company, ETruck and a robotaxi company and STILL don't get to the same valuation than Tesla currently has.

Teslas share price is math for stupid people.

  • sib 3 days ago

    >> i don't think they will be able to have a lot higher revenue per ride than uber. Not 9x

    Why would Tesla need to have higher revenue per ride than Uber? The value of a company is driven (ultimately) by its profit, not its revenue. And Tesla doesn't have to give the majority of the fare to the driver.

    • gamblor956 3 days ago

      Tesla has to pay for the operational and maintenance costs of the vehicle which Uber can offload to the drivers (most drivers barely break even after taking these cost into account), on top of all the ride management infrastructure that Uber deals with.

      Higher costs means higher revenue is necessary to break even. It's basic math. Don't even need to get to first order principles.

      • sib 2 days ago

        Yes, and Uber pays ~80% to the drivers, so that the drivers can pay for those things...

        And, also, Tesla car owners will be able to use their POVs as part of the Robotaxi network, for which Tesla will get a cut of the fare.

CursedSilicon 3 days ago

Private taxis don't compete with public transit. They operate in completely different spheres

  • dddgghhbbfblk 3 days ago

    As a blanket statement that's not true with NYC being the most obvious (but not the only) counterexample.

    • jrflowers 3 days ago

      Do you commute to and from work every day by taxi in NYC

      • shalmanese 3 days ago

        Early on in Uber's life, I went to a presentation they held where they showed there was a U shaped curve by income of who used Uber. Upper middle class people used them as discretionary entertainment vehicles but Uber had a substantial lower class population using them as necessary transport when working graveyard shifts in locations public transit didn't go.

        So yes, there's a surprising contingent of people who commute to work every single working day using hire cars.

      • joshjob42 3 days ago

        Most wouldn't because it's expensive. But at scale automated vehicles should be dramatically less expensive, in the range of 50-60¢/mi conservatively, and at that level it is going to be quite compelling to a lot of people since it's a private vehicle (no taxi driver) and it's reasonably affordable, a 1 seat ride, etc.

        It's possible they'll be even cheaper but that range is the cost according to the IRS of operating a typical vehicle all in, and that seems like a reasonable guess of the cost of an autonomous electric vehicle with far lower probability of crash than a human (all the savings basically going to profit margin).

        At ~60¢/mi, there'd be a lot of people who would save money on balance using autonomous taxis to get everywhere vs owning a private vehicle (10k mi/yr would cost only ~$6k/yr, a pretty low cost of ownership/use for a private vehicle).

      • dddgghhbbfblk 3 days ago

        First of all, some people do commute via ride hailing apps, yes. Second of all, transportation is a much bigger category than simply taking people to and from work.

  • crusty 3 days ago

    I imagine this seems "true" to people who don't consider public transit an option for whatever (class) reason.

    As others have said, they definitely compete in the same market.

lisdexan 3 days ago

>Uber, lyft, regular taxis

Waymo is already there, just needs to scale and they are already cooperating with Uber.

>public transit

Unless Musk develops the shrink ray it will never compete with actual high throughput public transit, for the same reason if jets flew themselves we wouldn't commute by air. The cost of drivers per fare is less than in a private car, so the benefits for a bus are lesser. Modern metros are already autonomous.

  • zeryx 3 days ago

    Also the US is essentially the only country with failed public transit, outside of Africa. If he thinks he can expand his robo taxi fleet to China or Europe or hell even Russia he's got screws loose