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While I do think RT's will become a very profitable business for Tesla, my opinion is Ark (and many other bulls) assume revenues & profits which are unreasonably too high. We've seen how Tesla is willing to cut margins on auto sales to very low levels while only a year or two ago practically no one was forecasting this. My hunch is Tesla will keep margins on RT rides very low as well as a means to push RT rides into the mainstream as an incredible value proposition.

Tesla's mission is NOT to make huge profits, it's to improve the world via green energy and robotics. I believe they'll cut margins to levels most bulls today aren't expecting.
 
While I do think RT's will become a very profitable business for Tesla, my opinion is Ark (and many other bulls) assume revenues & profits which are unreasonably too high. We've seen how Tesla is willing to cut margins on auto sales to very low levels while only a year or two ago practically no one was forecasting this. My hunch is Tesla will keep margins on RT rides very low as well as a means to push RT rides into the mainstream as an incredible value proposition.

Tesla's mission is NOT to make huge profits, it's to improve the world via green energy and robotics. I believe they'll cut margins to levels most bulls today aren't expecting.
Elon has stated 30% margin target. He is only going lower because he can produce more vehicles than there is demand at 30% margins. That won't be the case for many decades with robotaxis.
 
Elon has stated 30% margin target. He is only going lower because he can produce more vehicles than there is demand at 30% margins. That won't be the case for many decades with robotaxis.

We don't know that for a fact. RT's will be something most people have never seen before, and most won't trust it initially. Most people who own cars will keep driving their cars, most people who use trains and buses will keep doing so, most people who like using Uber will stay with what they know.

Tesla will need to break into all of those sectors with this new tech, they will have to convince people to make the switch and try it out. The fastest way to persuade them is to make RT's incredibly affordable, and that might mean dropping RT margins to thin levels, not the large margins many bulls are forecasting today.

I'm just saying we can't assume 30% profit margins on RT's. Tesla has shown us they are willing to lower margins to razor thin levels purposefully to increase adoption rates, so IMHO there is a decent chance RT margins go the same route.
 
7 billion people in the world. If 1% will try it, that is 70 million customers that could potentially use it on day one. Demand just won't be an issue.
And if pigs can fly.... I get the excitement of FSD, that will eventually lead to RT. And, now we know that Elon will have an unveiling of RT on August 8th...forced on him due to the Reuter’s Misinformed story. I do not think it was a coincidence that both happened on the same day. Also, I have the trial, finally, of FSD on my Model S, and it worked just fine the few times we used it over this weekend With only a couple of interventions. However, we are a long way off on RT. Too many edge cases that will take 2-5 years, even with the exponential learning of the system, to get to 99.999%. And, as @Mengy mentioned above, few people outside our circle are not familiar with Tesla let alone RT, and if they will even use it? Let’s not worry about profit margins (which will be substantial) till we even have the opportunity to have actual RT available...and I think it will still be at least a few years away.
Let’s see if we can get the next gen Tesla out in the next couple of years (now having my doubts) to help with Tesla’s margins and next growth phase.
Education is even more necessary now, with most legacy going to hybrids and delaying EV’s. Tesla will have to do this alone and price cuts is not the answer to help with demand if people don’t know the benefits of EV’s and that range anxiety is not real, if you drive a tesla.
 
We don't know that for a fact. RT's will be something most people have never seen before, and most won't trust it initially. Most people who own cars will keep driving their cars, most people who use trains and buses will keep doing so, most people who like using Uber will stay with what they know.

Tesla will need to break into all of those sectors with this new tech, they will have to convince people to make the switch and try it out. The fastest way to persuade them is to make RT's incredibly affordable, and that might mean dropping RT margins to thin levels, not the large margins many bulls are forecasting today.

I'm just saying we can't assume 30% profit margins on RT's. Tesla has shown us they are willing to lower margins to razor thin levels purposefully to increase adoption rates, so IMHO there is a decent chance RT margins go the same route.
You know what demographic has low car ownership rate, high tolerance for risk and novelty, is more urbanized, uses ridesharing the most, and tends to get intoxicated frequently? Young adults. I think that's the clear first target market if adoption is an issue.
 
Y'all are looking at this the wrong way. You are looking at what the usage and impact of robotaxis will be without actually looking at the bare reality. Robotaxi (full level 5 autonomy) will *never* be a reality with Teslas tech stack. Elon is just selling hope at this point without any basis in reality.
 
For FSD, the "AI app" (side note, "AI" is now being used so broadly its losing actual meaning), is not the ability to control the car, its the ability to take video images from cameras and convert those images, as a human or animal does, into understandable actions based on the perception of the physical world.

It could well be called "video --- perception"

Once solved, and it is very close at this point the actual decisions and controls of the car are nothing, already solved.

People mention Optimus on here but again, robot technology is already here. If Tesla can use FSD Video-Perception tech to be able to say to an Optimus, "go over and hand me the letter sitting on the hall table." Its not that its "AI" (its not as if Optimus itself decides what to do) but it would be the greatest tool ever invented by humans. I know that the computer is a tool in a sense, so computers may be the greatest, but a humanoid robot which can do any physical action a human can do, in a non geofenced space, would be the greatest tool.

FSD is being developed virtually in the open. We do not get to see how the FSD video-perception tech is being worked on with Optimus, but to consider it --- its almost beyond valuation.
 
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Up to 4 Quadrillion industry valuation based on low revenue input.
The industry value Optimus can disrupt is huge indeed...

but not the entire value will flow to $TSLA. This all depends on the price point/margins they sell them at.

So I hope Tesla provides the bot to customers at an OK price (say $25k to $50k) and then offers SaaS subscription plans to use your bot.

If Tesla doesn't work with the SaaS model, the actual profits Tesla will make from selling Optimi is miniscule compared to the value received by the users (companies and private individuals). It would be a financially insane move.

But I'm quite sure Tesla will handle this properly since they're already charging $99/month for non-working FSD, let alone a bot with some proper functions and ability to update capabilites OTA.
 
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CYBERCAB FINANCIALS
Until now, I have never performed an analysis on the potential financial impact of the Robotaxi/Cybercab.
The cybercab was excluded from my long range estimates.

I completed a high level analysis recently. I took Uber's 2023 financials and adjusted them as if they ran a robotaxi business.
I stripped out driver payments, added costs such as charging, maintenance & repairs, Insurance, back office logistics, etc.

In this analysis, Uber's EBITDA went from $5B (25% of sales) to $30B (50% of sales).
Note: Sales are higher in the robotaxi model as Uber's revenues exclude the portion of billings given to drivers.
EBITDA= Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization


I was surprised by these results and as I dug into it i realized the following:
Since everything is practically outsourced at Uber, profit is shared with:
- the driver
- the gas station
- the auto insurance company
- the mechanic
- the car wash

When you have no driver and you have your own infrastructure (service centers, charging stations, insurance, etc), you keep a higher percentage of the end to end profit. Of course the robotaxi model requires a huge ongoing capital investment with the vehicles, but in Tesla's case, they mfg the vehicles and thus acquire them "at cost" - no markup to share there either.

I'm not ready to share the analysis but hope to prior to the Aug 8 event.
Already done it for you although might be a bit sporty for 2030:
There is some chatter on the main thread about ARK's latest estimates going into Trillions and how this is not possible. I wanted to offer an alternative view point.

My $125T market cap 50x50x50 target that I have previously posted is made up of:

$50k per annum per fleet vehicle profit. Competition is the cost of 2 or 3 taxi drivers plus ICE depreciation (2 or 3 vehicles). I believe that TE profits will pay for all RT costs including adding to the fleet.

50m vehicles in Tesla's fleet which they own 100%. Folk have been talking about TSLA dividends. This is where the cash will go. You won't be able to buy the cars anymore. Good for the environment and therefore mission. Warren has also stated this.

50 P/E ratio. Amazon is 57 right now. Do I need to say more?

This works out as $125T which some folk believe is more money than the rest of the world combined. It is true that gross world product is only $80T. However I believe that the world wealth figure of $400T is what we should be comparing to as a potential TAM for share holders.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwigncuDr87yAhVTQEEAHfCvAxMQFnoECAUQAQ&url=https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/about-us/research/publications/global-wealth-report-2020-en.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2uB7smxwX7h1Rgez9bLspG
We are talking market cap here not sales or profits. Profits are 50 times smaller based on P/E ratio and margins are huge (sales will tend towards 3x profit -- maybe less). $400T could easily be $1000T by 2030 (1 quadrillion).
Based on this my profit is 50x50 = $2.5T. This is only 0.25% of total world wealth. They offer transport, energy, robots and likely homes. What else is there?

Don't make me include the Bot - $125T will only increase...
Later in the thread I updated to add Optimus.