Scenario of the Tesla competition with fleets of autonomous cars.
Let say the Model 3 will be sold with Autopilot and free Supercharging as options.
By 2020, the Model 3 with AP and the revamped Models S and X will fully autonomous.
Tesla will announce its on-demand transportation service only when:
- its cars drive 100% autonomously, anywhere and without human intervention.
- annual sales reach some big numbers (500K?) so that Tesla has enough cash to build new gigafactories and assembly lines
With Tesla on-demand service, customers will have to option to drive the cars themselves (for a fee). This will make Tesla more desirable than the Google self-driving pods. Tesla will keep selling cars to individuals and transportation companies (like Uber) in order to get as much cash as quickly as possible.
When Tesla generate enough cash to build dozens of factories without significantly diluting its shareholders, most of the cars produced will be added to the Tesla fleet.
As customers understand the benefit of on-demand transportation (cheaper and available instantly anywhere), Tesla will offer its car owners the option to repurchase their Tesla, and add them to the Tesla fleet.
Then, Tesla will announce the 4th generation platform to best compete with other self-driving fleets (human won't be able to drive the cars from this platform).
Around the same time, Apple will launch a fully autonomous cars.
Like Tesla, the car will be designed by Apple and under its brand. But it will be manufactured by OEM partners (like with Foxconn for the iPhones). BMW as first possible partner.
Contrary to the Model 3, the Apple Car will only be available for on-demand transportation (won't be sold to consumers).
Individuals and companies will be able to use the car as a on-demand delivery platform.
Shops, malls and employers will be able to participate in the Apple Charging program (similar to Tesla Destination charging).
With the company advertising and investment in factories (for car and batteries), Apple will quickly become the most well-known on-demand transportation platform in the biggest cities around the world.
Google will launches its self-driving car fleet a little sooner than Apple. Google will have its own fleet of cards (like Tesla and Apple) but it will allow auto partners to manufacture their own autonomous. These cars will use Google's self-driving software freely. Google will allow partners to monetize their fleets of cars: they'll just have to join the Google On Demand Transport Network (exclusively). The project will be similar to Android: with AOSP partners for OEMs, Google Play Services for the Google's Transport Network, the Nexus program for cars designed and manage 100% by Google.
Amazon will be late to the party and try to combine its program with its drone delivery project. It will enter the market with other OEMs to directly compete with Apple and Google.
Uber will also have to partner with auto-manufacturers to switch to autonomous vehicles (human drivers will be too expensive pretty quickly).
The company will probably prefer Tesla to traditional manufacturer, as the giants (Google and Apple) will become huge threats with their existing user base, their industrial expertise and their cash reserve. The two companies might consider a merger to better compete with the Silicon Valley giants.
Microsoft might stay on the side and let its competitors fight for this market while it focuses on the information industry. Alphabet might be distracted and Microsoft and Facebook hopes to take advantage of the situation.
More importantly, the traditional automakers will be forced to:
- switch to 100% battery-electric vehicles in just a few years
- implement OTA and autonomous driving
- abandon the dealership model at a cost
- consolidate 'in a rush': as people abandon their cars for on-demand transportation, car production will temporarily increase to make big fleets of self-driving cars for Google and Apple, but then the market industry will concentrate around a few leaders.
- invest in charging network to avoid become more dependent on actors like Tesla and Apple.
At some point, independent charging networks will emerged with a standard to charge anywhere (cf. USB), for a fee (cf. payment card systems).
What do you think?