GM gives $500 Million to Lyft....Apple $1Billion to Didi....Toyota...$?...to Uber. Might be worthwhile not to be first to market. In NYC, it seems like most UBERs are black, hybrid Toyota Camrys.
The two biggest kids left on the autonomous driving stage are Google and Tesla. Google is using both its vast resources and a very systematic liDar mapping effort and Tesla is master of telemetry. Another thing to think about is connectivity and backbone. Google is currently about the business of wiring cities - Tesla and SpaceX are putting together a space-based satellite system for global coverage.
Autonomous driving is going to require a significant amount of bandwidth for connected cars, telemetry and mapping.
There are quite a few different concepts to juggle here and they don't necessarily fit together in obvious ways or in neat competition with one another:
Electrification
Ride Sharing
Google Type (cumulative exception based vehicle autonomy)
Tesla Type (cumulative familiarity based fleet autonomy)
Cumulative Fleet Learning
Network hosted services
Networking itself - traditional terrestrial carrier dependent, terrestrial carrier independent floating / flying / space-based.
Tesla and SpaceX (and Solar City) have a path through this maze that is capable of providing penny per mile transportation anywhere on the face of the Earth (or Mars). It represents a two order of magnitude cost reduction for the entire basis of energy, transport and communications (economic mainstays of the entire global economy besides food, water housing and medicine - with cost reduction benefits to all of these and the distinct potential to go beyond transport to excavators etc in housing construction and irrigation also).
Owing to the sheer scale of the issue, nothing is going to happen all at once. The trick here is to look at two distinct economies. Firstly the contraction of the traditional non-autonomous ICE market into measures to deliver relative savings and to escape margin pressure from new technology vehicles. Uber and ride sharing in general is one of these.
The second is the pace of actual replacement with technologies that have no dependencies in the former economy. This really will be production constrained and in the case of Tesla the under-supply of transportation with a cost basis two orders of magnitude below the preceding technology (regardless of autonomy of ICE vehicles) will result inevitably in bonanza profitability both for internally funded growth and to amply reward long term shareholders on the 2020 - 2025 time line.
Meanwhile for the short term: After forecasting the stock down from $255, down through Q1ER, maintain down through $190/KWh pack level cost disclosure, down through fundraising speculation, white swan warning at the c $210 level and finally calling a bottom on May 19th, stock is now up and forecasting a long up-leg from here through Sharholders Meeting May 31st (positive M3 progress reassurance and difinitive resolution of Model X as a concern as opposed to an asset). Then Gigafactory Unveil (anticipating positive recognition of Tesla Energy as an additional business unit that is not fully priced in). Then through Q2 ER which offers a combination of strong sales and strong cash flows (incorporating current raise) alongside a trough in spending for strong net positive results and guidance.
