PhaseWhite
Member
Actually the reason TSLA FSD is valued at zero is a little different.
Waymos and Cruises have been showing the demo for a few years now. Yet, they have not unveiled a robotaxi. So, now that Tesla demoed the FSD to investors now, they think it will be years before Tesla can release robotaxis.
There is also quite a bit of skepticism about robotaxi in general - whether it will ever be possible, mainly because of such slow progress by Waymo & Cruise.
It is possible Waymo & Cruise can release robotaxi in one city before Tesla. But, how fast can they release in others ? Afterall because of Lidar, their technology is worthless unless they achieve complete FSD. Ofcourse, there is the problem of test data for learning. They don't have 100k cars on the road in 4 continents.
For Tesla it is very different. Because this is how Tesla can do it ...
1. Keep releasing newer versions of FSD to the fleet and make the NN better & better. (Till oct '2020).
2. Get regulators to approve FSD without drivers or riders at low speeds. Stage the cars at various parking lots & let people include their cars in TN. When the rider calls, the car goes to the rider location and the rider will drive the car with the help of FSD that drives well 99% of the time. (Nov '2020 till regulators allow full FSD)
3. Full FSD in places regulators allow it (top urban areas)
Waymo & Cruise have to essentially wait till step 3 above to make any money - and they have confidence they have solved FSD (atleast for that geofenced area).
Objectively I think Tesla's autonomous strategy has a lot to like:
1. Incremental deployment with shadow mode feedback vs perfect L4 first means Tesla can move faster and leverage paying customers to help train and validate thier software.
2. Ability to fund the developement through customer software purchases vs burning investment capital. And I also agree its likely the Tesla network will be launched with a driver supervision requirement at first which allows more immediate revenue and test data generation.
3. The HW3 chip is really a game changer. Given what Tesla has already been able to do with the nVidia chip and 10x less effivtive throughput I think well see massive improvements in the next year. No other OEMs are anywhere close and the media is basically in denial of this major achievment. That will work to Tesla's advantage as other OEMs wont realize how f***ed they are until it's too late.
That said I'm not very confident we'll see Musks robotaxi dream realized fully in the next 24 months but because of Tesla's incremental approach it will be successful eventually and will continue to monitize things along the way.