Sure --- if roborides are cheap enough and safe enough, more people will use them.
The immediate question for Tesla and their investors --- can they really provide "safe" robo rides using their current approach?
This is far from being proven since Tesla is only rated as Level 2 autonomy which according to Tesla itself, requires constant supervision. Placing passengers and the public in danger with inadequate technology is a textbook legal definition of negligence.
The longer term question; assuming they solve FSD --- is can they make tons of money from cheap rides? Enough to justify their current outlandish stock price.
They recently launched their Robotaxi service in Austin, and it seems to be as good as Waymo or better. https://youtu.be/RcaBZenrCCs
They also recently autonomously delivered a car to a customer’s apartment straight from the factory line. https://youtu.be/lRRtW16GalE
https://www.synopsys.com/blogs/chip-design/autonomous-drivin...
The fantasy that any of this nonsense is a sustainable business, especially when the charismatic leader completely FUBARed his government hobby project and is biting the hand that feeds him. Tesla's biggest source of revenue is the US government.
Even a US city of 100,000 people, it can be really tough or impossible to get an Uber - good luck getting a ride from the airport at 12:30 in the morning
I bought a model Y dual motor in 2021 is it’s been hands down my best car ever. Almost zero maintenance. Yet more proof of never take stock advice from HN, in fact do the opposite in most circumstances. Elon derangement syndrome at its finest.
This is just driven by partisan anti-Elon sentiment.
The reality is Tesla has never accounted for more than 2% of light vehicle sales worldwide. And over the last 2 years; instead of spectacular growth, sales have actually declined.
And of course, Tesla isn't even in the top 10 for top selling brands of cars. Only about 1 in 50 new cars being sold is a Tesla.
Their valuation is largely based on hype.
[1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/the-worlds-best-selling-car-is...
> If taxis get cheaper, people will use them in even more situations, like daily commutes.
This seems straight out of the Uber pitch from its early days. "Our total addressable market is the entire auto industry because people will prefer taxis over driving themselves". And a decade later where are we? Most ridesharing apps are shrinking day by day.
The unit cost of a taxi isn't sustainable in a long term. People might want to pay for someone to drive them around but that is an expensive proposition.
Robo taxis now seem to be selling the same dream. Cut out the driver and that will make rides cheaper. But deploying taxi is going to be a huge expenditure. This might be doable with VC money upfront and even cheap just like the early days of Uber. But in the long run same thing is going to happen. Once all competition is gone robotaxis are not going to be any cheaper. It will be back to square one.
That was my life in Beijing until I moved back to the states 8+ years ago. Forget about even buying a car, where would you park it? The subway was an option, especially after line 10 opened which was basically one line to work but...it was always really crowded and I didn't like standing for an hour (loop lines aren't very direct).
But there were too many cars, to make it work I had to shift my working hours, so I would leave super early (~6 AM) and come home around 3PM. It definitely didn't feel sustainable but it worked out (now I WFH...and in LA I lived right next to my lab...so I still avoid driving).
Robotaxis can't deal with insane traffic, and would be disadvantaged when aggressive drivers learn how to trick robotaxis to give way submissively.
Some countries have highly developed road systems that are more predictable, and where drivers are more likely to cooperate rather than aggressively defect.
I don't know. Take cities like Bangalore (India) for example. I don't live there but do occasionally visit family every couple of years. And I consistently hear a general sentiment of "I just take Uber because the traffic is insane. But the traffic is insane because of too many Ubers"
But in all of that sentiment, nobody's saying "I wish I could drive instead" – they're more than happy to have someone drive them around if it's cheap enough. That was true with Auto Rickshaws, and it's even more attractive in an air conditioned car.
If taxis get cheaper, people will use them in even more situations, like daily commutes. Why not?
And what do you mean by "EV Fantasy" – I get if you meant Robotaxi or self-driving fantasy. But there are hundreds of thousands of Teslas (maybe a million?) driving around the world isn't there? Are all these people imagining that they're driving a Tesla EV? Which part of it is a fantasy?