Thank you, Gigapress. Your post make me to think and speculate a bit and I came to the conclusion that Robotaxi could be truly revolutionary. I think it could transform the world like the iPhone did, with the major difference that there is no Competitior/Android in sight.
Many in this forum could enjoy FSD V12.3. I think we are all bound to our experiences and when we try to predict the future we start with our own experiences.
But, in my opinion, this will be not only be a revolution of (low cost) personal transport, this will also be a revolution of (low cost) material transport. I think Tesla did not target the delivery segment so far because Elon thought the whole time L5 is just around the corner. Elon was wrong, but I personally don’t think Elon will be wrong forever.
I read in this forum that many disengagement of FSD 12.3 are at the very beginning or at the very end of a particular journey. When we think about material transport, the challenge is the same. The beginning and the end of the journey. Luckily Tesla has a solution for this in mind - Optimus.
My prediction is: Robotaxi will not only be a robotic taxi, it will also serve as a taxi for a robot to enable material transport.
When we think about the usage of a taxi service over the day there are clearly hours in the morning and in the evening with high demand in personal transport. During many other hours, there is low demand for personal transport and during the night the demand is very low. During these hours, Robotaxi and Optimus can be used to transport parcels and anything we can think of.
When we think of the requirements of the robotaxi service, hygiene will be important. The car will be easy to clean and kept clean. But also the air will be cleaned and it is not so difficult from a technical standpoint to offer an air quality similar to in an operation room at the beginnig of the drive (source: I have experience in designing pharmaceutical plants). I imagine that some will never use public transport again.
Also entertainment during the journey will be important. For this purpose, each passenger will have his own dispay.
Special needs will be important. For example you will be able to book a childs seat with your drive, a hassle when renting a car today in my experience.
Versatility will be important. The seats can be laid flat down (by Optimus) to expand the cargo space.
Now lets focus to how the car will be produced. The battery needs only to be about 25 kWh. Tax credits or manufacturing credits don‘t really matter. Cheap LFP batteries will be imported from China if no domestic supply is available. AWD, high performance and high speed are no requirement for Robotaxi. Also the charge rate is of less importance. The system will allocate the cars and the requested drives and ensure that the available battery capacity is sufficient in 95 % of the drives (and could offer a discount if charging is needed during a particular trip). So I don‘t expect that Tesla will be battery constrained. I am confident that Elon will do what it takes to start production of Robotaxi as soon there is a regulatory approval in one city. I don‘t think the speed of the production ramp will be of particular importance since many other challenges need to be solved concurrent to offer a robotaxi service.
I think the production cost for Robotaxi will be much lower than 25‘000 USD in mass production. I think it will not be possible to buy one for at least some years. So the whole responsibility is at Tesla and with the data aquired during use Tesla can optimize their efforts. I hope this reduces the complaints of unhappy owners for example if the battery degrades too fast. Tesla will earn money for every drive and the offered rates could be similar to the existing rates of competitors (eg. Uber, Fedex, UPS, Public Transport).
I think the low cost car plan (model 2) was not scrapped. But who will really care about model 2 as soon as robotaxi is established in the market?
While I don‘t know which of my predictions will turn out to be true, I think this post shows the potential of Robotaxi.
There were many critical posts in the last days, written by a long standing, now disappointed forum member. I can understand that. However, we are never able to change what happened in the past and therefore we need to look ahead. So, lets do a simple napkin scenario analysis regarding FSD/Robotaxi (put in your own numbers and outcomes):
- Worst Case Scenario: Tesla scraps all plans for Level 5 autonomy by End of 2025 => Let’s assume a shareprice of 100.
- Best Case Scenario: Robotaxi service incl. Optimus support is introduced in the major cities in the US by End of 2025 with a clear path to fast expand the service to other areas => Let’s assume a shareprice of 600.
It is possible to do this regarding other topics, e.g. how high is the risk that Elon writes stuipd posts on X and how would the shareprice react.
So it seems that there is some potential to the upside regarding FSD/Robotaxi. We are investing because we are willing to take risks and because we are willing to support the mission. Investing, particularly investing in TSLA, is not easy.
Hold on your butts!