I made no claim that NYC is the perfect microcosm for the robo-taxi business model. And I do not believe individual car ownership is going away anytime soon for anyone willing to pay the premium to do so. But how about China? Brazil? India? Even if Americans are the hold-outs, generally speaking, the rest of the world has much fewer cars per citizen already and a natural fit for this model.
Americans generally have more cars because they're richer.
China is CRAZY to get individual cars now as their economy has improved- that's why everyone's rushing to get cars into that market.
And if you think it's gonna be a while before a big/good enough charging infrastructure is robotaxi ready in the US, china's WAY WAY WAY behind on that one.
The likelihood of Tesla reaching full autonomy and, consequently whether anyone else is close (i.e. Waymo) is an entirely different conversation. But for the record, a geofenced solution isn't a solution at all.
Sure it is.
you told us you thought urban cities were the primary initial adoption case.
So a robotaxi system geofenced to a city is exactly a solution for that.
Hell, most public transit is... a geofenced solution. It covers a very specific geographical area, usually no greater than the city itself.
You are incorrect on the range concerns. A 300mi range M3 will achieve that range +/- when it is driven in the exact manner that the EPA test cycle prescribes.
But that's not what we're talking about.
This includes a lot more freeway driving than many robo-taxi trips will require.
The EPA mileage for the Model 3 AWD is only about 6.5% better in city driving than highway driving.
The efficiency gap isn't nearly as large as you suggest.
See the 606mi M3 hypermiling range record for evidence of that effect. Obviously that can't be expected, but it illustrates the point.
It really doesn't though.
Those guys took 32 hours to go 606 miles, and that was with a cabin that got up to 108 degrees because they didn't run climate control either.
Seems like a pretty crap taxi ride, robo or otherwise.
Throw in continued effciency improvements via OAT updates and, for future models employing the latest battery tech
2-3 years for the new battery tech to be in mass production per Elon... guess that doesn't really fit with the "1 million robotaxis by end of this year" bit though does it?
Finally, I think we disconnected somewhere on who would be running the fleet of robo-taxis. Individual owners who opt-in to the Tesla fleet will not have pricing authority. They will not be in competition with each other
Of course they will.
The same rider can't ride in 2 taxis at the same time.
If my Tesla and yours are both in the network, and someone calls for a robotaxi, only 1 of us gets to pick them up.
if there's 100 tesla owners and only 50 riders, half the owners get nothing.
if Tesla executes to where they're building 20 million RT capable cars a year- there's just not enough riders to support that.
Nothing you've presented is entirely incorrect or not a concern. They're just all surmountable and FSD makes sense to buy now if you can. I won't respond again. So the last word is yours if you want it and feel the need to have it. Thanks for the discussion.
If your argument is "robotaxis will eventually be very successful" I agree.
If your argument is "robotaxis will replace a significant # of privately owned cars" I agree there too- as I said I expect families with for example 2 or 3 cars today will drop down to 1 or 2 in many cases.
If your argument is "eventually they'll figure out the charging and the cleaning and all the details of actually operating the RTs" I agree there too- I even suggested the human-attended L3 stations, and maybe even fleet-owner-operated ones- can help there.
But the idea everybody will be able to make $30,000/yr off their Tesla via robotaxi just doesn't hold up to math if we believe Tesla about how many cars a year they're planning to be making/selling later this decade.
Some people probably will. Fleet owners (or possibly Tesla themselves) probably will.
Both will likely remain a minority of owners though, certainly in our lifetimes anyway.
I thank you too for the discussion.
