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Down about 40% from the ATH, and basically flat for the past 4 years. Of course when the stock price is dislocated from observable value its hard to know how to proceed.

Market Cap : $820B
Revenue : $97B (flat last 4 quarters)

Hard to understand what a target price might be; really anything is possible including the stock getting cut in half or doubling from here.

Too Hard Bucket?

tecmo
...

Tesla is a zero.

They have ramped up datacenter spending and gigafactory construction and have increased their fixed costs at just the wrong time. They shot themselves in the foot with removing lidar, which mistake BYD did not make, and making their self driving execution more difficult. The brand is radioactive to most people in the world that are willing to buy electric cars; it is viewed positive by people who do not. Revenue from humanoid robotics and robotaxis is far away.

They will need bridge funding to survive the next several years, and who will that come from now? The CEO has allied himself with petrostates, if he takes their money they will use it to destroy Tesla. If TSLA, SpaceX, Twitter/X, and Starlink were to come under separate sustained pressure I suspect the web of them would be overextended.

I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole for now. It's a car maker at 9x ttm sales, which are almost guaranteed to fall off a cliff.

I see no way out of the current situation.

I see no way out of the current situation.

So you're saying I should hold off on selling my Jan '27 $290 puts? :-)

I joke around a bit too much, including the last post. The Tesla saddens me. They make a good car, EVs are needed to get us out of the climate situation, and is touch to see Musk in this state and causing so much harm to others. I hope they do recover and deliver on their earlier promise.

Jan 27 puts looks interesting, I'd hate to give you bad advice. TSLA sure is volatile and a lot can change in two years.

I've not really looked at Tesla before but an average of 4bn fcf x 20 multiple equates to 80bn market cap and $24 per share that's 9% of the current price. Didn't appreciate it was that overvalued.

average of 4bn fcf x 20 multiple equates to 80bn market cap and $24 per share that's 9% of the current price. Didn't appreciate it was that overvalued.


If Tesla was just a car manufacturer with stagnant sales growth and significant reputational issues, I think your conclusion would be warranted. But it ignores the significant potential of full self-driving and robotaxis and personal robots, to name just 2 earth-shattering technological developments that are far from guaranteed to work, but if they do...

I'm too much of a chicken to buy the shares but I wouldn't bet against them.

DTB

[your post has been edited for brevity]

its hard to know how to proceed.
...
Too Hard Bucket

: )
Jim

one of the few remaining tesla short sellers forecast that nothing could shatter musk fanboys' tech-fantasy other than >80% plunge in share price. seldom does sentiment not also work in reverse.

regarding elon's 'helping' the transition, he took a look at the hardest possible dilemma, which is robust grid upgrade and electrification.
at least he realized this was out of his depth, even at a regional level. for that, he relied on...government subsidies.

regarding musk adventures in space, they are self-disposing. disruption to others seems to be nobody's business despite economic and safety issues:
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2527902/120-starlink-...
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense...

If Tesla was just a car manufacturer with stagnant sales growth and significant reputational issues, I think your conclusion would be warranted. But it ignores the significant potential of full self-driving and robotaxis and personal robots, to name just 2 earth-shattering technological developments that are far from guaranteed to work, but if they do...

I'm too much of a chicken to buy the shares but I wouldn't bet against them.


I’ve given up on short selling after taking significant losses in the last few years, but I have two remaining shorts, one of them on the Canadian financial sector (XFN.to) and the other on XLG, an ETF based on the biggest 50 companies in the S&P 500. Both of these I consider to be hedges. XLG has weights of about 11% for the top 3 companies (AAPL, MSFT, NVDA) and smaller weights for thé next few companies (AMZN 6%, GGOG 6%, META 5%, AVGO 4%, TSLA 3%, BRK 3%, JPM 2%; 63% in these top 10, because of market cap weighting. The only 2 I feel uncomfortable shorting are BRK (for obvious reasons) and TSLA, because of its potential for explosive growth. So I bought a 1% stake in each, last week.

I never thought I would go from shorting TSLA to owning shares, and it’s not like any of my other investments, but I think it is true that they have a good chance of becoming the biggest company in the world. And if they can master full self-driving as they seem to be on the cusp of doing, they may be #1 sooner rather than later. I would not want to be an owner of UBER or any of the other car companies, with the possible exception of BYD, just in case regular cars have a few more years before being obsolete.

I never thought I would go from shorting TSLA to owning shares, and it’s not like any of my other investments, but I think it is true that they have a good chance of becoming the biggest company in the world. And if they can master full self-driving as they seem to be on the cusp of doing, they may be #1 sooner rather than later. I would not want to be an owner of UBER or any of the other car companies, with the possible exception of BYD, just in case regular cars have a few more years before being obsolete.

Let me make the "not bull" case. Musk has criticized Waymo's geofenced with a remote safety driver approach as difficult to scale. Which is true. Thus far, Musk's approach has been to try to solve one hard problem one time and be done rather than solve multiple easier problems many times. Which makes sense.

But Tesla's robotaxi rollout in Austin next month with be geofenced with a safety driver. In other words, Tesla is going with the very approach they have been criticizing for years. That says to me Tesla doesn't believe true FSD will be available any time soon, otherwise why would they even be bothering?

Just for the sake of argument, let's say Tesla is the first to achieve true FSD. That would be great, but being first isn't enough to remain in first. As an example, I present Tesla. Not very long ago, Tesla was the dominant global EV manufacturer. But today, Tesla's sales are flat or declining even as the market expands and competitors are gaining market share by double digits. Worse, Tesla once enjoyed tech-like margins, which are now down to car company-like margins. And realistically, every car company has plans for autonomous driving. If Tesla is first, they might not be first for long, and they might not even be first.

I'm also a bit skeptical that even if Tesla cracks true FSD first that the cybercab will be particularly lucrative, for the simple reason they face the same problem all rideshare companies do: If you build out your fleet to meet peak demand, then a portion of your fleet sits idle the rest of the time. Uber/Lyft solve this with surge pricing, not owning their fleet, and employing gig workers. Eliminating the operator cost certainly helps with this problem and may even induce demand due to lower fares. But the basic problem remains as well as the personal preference and connivence of simply driving your own car. The cybercab might work out well, but I don't think it will be a blockbuster.

Same kind of thing with Optimus and AI. Telsa isn't the leader in either of these fields. Both could work out well, but I think a home run is unlikely.

But Tesla's robotaxi rollout in Austin next month with be geofenced with a safety driver. In other words, Tesla is going with the very approach they have been criticizing for years. That says to me Tesla doesn't believe true FSD will be available any time soon, otherwise why would they even be bothering?

I don't know, but it may just be a regulatory thing - they have to show it's safe first, even if the company thinks it is safe. If they are right, then the geofencing and the monitoring can disappear, no harm done.


Just for the sake of argument, let's say Tesla is the first to achieve true FSD. That would be great, but being first isn't enough to remain in first. As an example, I present Tesla. Not very long ago, Tesla was the dominant global EV manufacturer. But today, Tesla's sales are flat or declining even as the market expands and competitors are gaining market share by double digits. Worse, Tesla once enjoyed tech-like margins, which are now down to car company-like margins. And realistically, every car company has plans for autonomous driving. If Tesla is first, they might not be first for long, and they might not even be first.

All this is true, and I agree that as a car manufacturer, their competitive moat is shallow. But I think that if they can get the FSD to work, they will be far ahead, because others have been relying on technology that doesn't scale.


I'm also a bit skeptical that even if Tesla cracks true FSD first that the cybercab will be particularly lucrative, for the simple reason they face the same problem all rideshare companies do: If you build out your fleet to meet peak demand, then a portion of your fleet sits idle the rest of the time. Uber/Lyft solve this with surge pricing, not owning their fleet, and employing gig workers. Eliminating the operator cost certainly helps with this problem and may even induce demand due to lower fares. But the basic problem remains as well as the personal preference and connivence of simply driving your own car. The cybercab might work out well, but I don't think it will be a blockbuster.

I think this is too pessimistic. If FSD works, it will work for Cybercabs, but it will also work for all the other Tesla cars, so there will be a big base right off the bat, and then of course there will be massive sales increases (and, probably, margin increases) for regular Tesla cars which people will want to own because of FSD. But it is a very complicated thing to analyze, as FSD would bring a whole series of social consequences that are hard to foresee, like maybe people getting rid of their second car and using other people's Teslas with ride sharing, or using Teslas instead of public transportation, etc. etc. I can't predict how it will all work out, but it's potentially a technology that gives Tesla tremendous options.


Same kind of thing with Optimus and AI. Telsa isn't the leader in either of these fields. Both could work out well, but I think a home run is unlikely.

I agree, it is even harder to estimate when these might be ready and how big the market for them might turn out to be. And there are others, like the semi, which should be available by the end of the year.

Bottom line, I think your arguments are fine, just as good as mine, but in investing we should try not to commit to one idea and stick to it come hell or high water. I am sure Tesla does not pass Buffett's rule 1 - but I am equally sure you can't count it out, and I think some of the negativity around Musk and around the company's recent sales results (which are themselves partly because of Musk's public image) may be obscuring just how close Tesla is to making a big breakthrough.

Regards, DTB

I don't know, but it may just be a regulatory thing - they have to show it's safe first, even if the company thinks it is safe. If they are right, then the geofencing and the monitoring can disappear, no harm done.

As I understand it, Texas has a very favorable regulatory climate in regards to AV ride hailing. There is no special permitting required as long as the AV complies with traffic and safety rules.

I think this is too pessimistic. If FSD works, it will work for Cybercabs, but it will also work for all the other Tesla cars, so there will be a big base right off the bat, and then of course there will be massive sales increases (and, probably, margin increases) for regular Tesla cars which people will want to own because of FSD. But it is a very complicated thing to analyze, as FSD would bring a whole series of social consequences that are hard to foresee, like maybe people getting rid of their second car and using other people's Teslas with ride sharing, or using Teslas instead of public transportation, etc. etc. I can't predict how it will all work out, but it's potentially a technology that gives Tesla tremendous options.

Yes...but Tesla has said they want full control over the entire Cybercab operation, from owning the fleet, to summoning a ride in the Tesla app, to vehicle dispatch, routing, and payment. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see there is big potential upside here. But if any Tesla could be used for ridesharing, then it actually competes with the cybercab business.


Bottom line, I think your arguments are fine, just as good as mine, but in investing we should try not to commit to one idea and stick to it come hell or high water. I am sure Tesla does not pass Buffett's rule 1 - but I am equally sure you can't count it out, and I think some of the negativity around Musk and around the company's recent sales results (which are themselves partly because of Musk's public image) may be obscuring just how close Tesla is to making a big breakthrough.

That's why I'm a "not bull." Tesla could well have some big hits, and it might be fine without any big hits. But it is already priced as if it will have some big hits.

If FSD works, it will work for Cybercabs, but it will also work for all the other Tesla cars, so there will be a big base right off the bat, and then of course there will be massive sales increases (and, probably, margin increases) for regular Tesla cars which people will want to own because of FSD.

Jumping in on this one point, which is not necessarily correct.

Trivially, Cybercab has some physical differences from the rest of the existing - which might be necessary for taxi services to function economically which many (most?) Teslas do not have. It's got a front bumper, automatic doors, a smaller cabin that can be entirely seen from the interior camera (no rear seat footwells out of view), and (presumably) HW5.

Perhaps more importantly, the Cybercab is supposedly going to be much cheaper than the Model Y (which has an ATP of about $55K, making it a more expensive choice to put into a rideshare fleet). So what works economically for a $25K car may not work for one that costs twice as much, especially since that's one of the main features that Tesla has identified that differentiates their service from Waymo's.

And then there's the big operational question of whether a system that works for fleet-owned cars can allow individual car owners to have true self-driving. No Level 5 car exists today. Waymo, and now Tesla, are bridging the gap between what cars are capable of doing and what a Level 5 system needs by lots of support systems - remote operators (but not drivers), teams of folks that can go out to the cars when necessary, where the system can simply decline to go certain places or into certain situations, etc. It's entirely possible that Tesla might get to a system that can work if it's supported by that support system, but not without it. You could end up in a situation where it can make sense to use the system for a pay-for ridesharing system: where the fleet is small, the service area is concentrated (and defined by the fleet operator), and the operator gets to set operating parameters on how the system is used.......but where it doesn't make economic sense to allow a million existing Tesla drivers get to have Level 5 access just for their personal use.

Of course, Tesla has promised those folks they would have Level 5 access when it was ready, but that might end up being a very expensive negative proposition for them - so it wouldn't shock me if the Cybercab launched as a TaaS operation and Tesla never flipped the "switch" that Musk has referred to as the metaphorical activation of Level 5 driving on all existing Teslas.

Perhaps more importantly, the Cybercab is supposedly going to be much cheaper than the Model Y (which has an ATP of about $55K, making it a more expensive choice to put into a rideshare fleet). So what works economically for a $25K car may not work for one that costs twice as much, especially since that's one of the main features that Tesla has identified that differentiates their service from Waymo's.

And then there's the big operational question of whether a system that works for fleet-owned cars can allow individual car owners to have true self-driving. No Level 5 car exists today. ...

Of course, Tesla has promised those folks they would have Level 5 access when it was ready, but that might end up being a very expensive negative proposition for them - so it wouldn't shock me if the Cybercab launched as a TaaS operation and Tesla never flipped the "switch" that Musk has referred to as the metaphorical activation of Level 5 driving on all existing Teslas.


I don't disagree with anything you have said, but what I meant is that FSD will eventually get to all Teslas, and then they can do what they want with it, including getting it to do rides for others. This is essentially what Musk has said many times, when he has said (paraphrased) 'With FSD, why would most people buy any other car, when it can not only be used by you but it can also generate income when you're not using it?'

So if and when FSD ever works, as you say, it will probably start with Cybercabs, but it could eventually be used as a taxi service by any of the millions of people who already have Teslas. And of course, for many people, a Tesla would be hugely more valuable if it could drive them around without supervision, allowing them to waste more time on social media, sleep, etc.

dtb

I don't disagree with anything you have said, but what I meant is that FSD will eventually get to all Teslas, and then they can do what they want with it, including getting it to do rides for others.

I understand what you mean. It just might not be true.

It may end up being the case that FSD doesn't eventually get to all Teslas, for any practical range of "eventually." It may be that for the next ten years or so, cars can only get to Level 4 autonomy - enough to function as carefully monitored and heavily supported rideshare services for areas within 10 miles of the center of a major urban area, but nowhere else.

If that's the scenario we end up in, Tesla's very much put itself in a box. It told about two million Tesla purchasers in the U.S. that their cars would one day drive themselves. That one day, Tesla would be able to flick a metaphorical "switch" and "turn on" self-driving in all those vehicles. But if that's only partially true - if Tesla flicks that switch for some Teslas - and only when they're in certain areas - and not for any of the others or for other times, that's going to be very problematic for them. Legally and for their brand. If they can't flick the switch for nearly everybody, business considerations might prevent them from flicking the switch for anybody outside of their own fleet.

As sykesix put it upthread, Tesla's approach is to "solve one hard problem one time and be done rather than solve multiple easier problems many times." But self-driving can't be rolled out until the "one hard problem" is solved. If all the multiple easier problems can be solved quicker, then self-driving may become ubiquitous in some areas long before Level 5 is acheived.

That's Tesla's dilemma. They might not be able to solve the Level 5 problem any time soon - it's a much harder problem. But they've staked too much on autonomy, so they also can't foreswear Level 4 systems and let Waymo have years to establish themselves in all the good-weather major cities. So they have to roll out their own Level 4 system, and hope that all the Tesla owners don't ask themselves why tourists in Austin get to take autonomous rides in a Tesla while the people who actually bought Model Y's aren't able to. But just because Tesla launches the Cybercab doesn't mean actual autonomy is rolling out to the rest of the Tesla fleet, certainly not anytime soon, and perhaps not even "eventually."

If that's the scenario we end up in, Tesla's very much put itself in a box. It told about two million Tesla purchasers in the U.S. that their cars would one day drive themselves. That one day, Tesla would be able to flick a metaphorical "switch" and "turn on" self-driving in all those vehicles. But if that's only partially true - if Tesla flicks that switch for some Teslas - and only when they're in certain areas - and not for any of the others or for other times, that's going to be very problematic for them.


Yes, it's kind of amazing that so many cars could be sold to so many people with such big promises without generating more backlash, whether it is legal or just damage to the brand. If I had paid $5000 (or whatever it was) for the FSD promise 6-8 years ago, I don't know how happy I would be to just have a car try to drive itself while I watch it like a hawk. I understand very recently this has improved a lot, but still, the promise has still not been delivered on and my understanding is that most FSD owners weren't using it much until recently.

Progress does seem to be accelerating, though, from what I have heard from Tesla owners, so while it is far from a certainty that they solve this problem before their competitors, it seems like a more reasonable bet given the recent progress.

But even FSD limited to Cybercabs with some remote supervision in most cities would be a pretty big deal, if they can do it while keeping the hardware price down to $30k.

on the lookout for any credible source against bears, i took immediate notice when longterm growth guru Chris Begg started making a public case for tesla. (if one is unaware of EastCoast, their process, record, and concentration....skip this post. this guy is no cathie wood type scammer.)

however, after listening to everything i could find, Begg anchors into a very standard (almost cliched) techno fanboy scenario.
i dont know what to make of this, other than increasing my own personal perception of increased uncertainty.

(one thing from the warren checklist still stands; no, i would personally never want to go into business with musk. hell, he may have tried to sell me a piece of twitter as some great favor !)

But even FSD limited to Cybercabs with some remote supervision in most cities would be a pretty big deal, if they can do it while keeping the hardware price down to $30k.

I mean, that obviously depends on what the overall economics are of the business. Obviously there's operating costs as well - if AV competitors with higher hardware costs end up having lower operating costs, running with a cheaper car might not be much of an advantage. If it turns out that even with hardware price of less than $30K, autonomous vehicle rides are still comparable in expense to ordinary for-hire services like cabs and Uber that use drivers, then it wouldn't be that big of a deal for the public or the cities they live in (though it could be very bad for those drivers). And if it's a capital-intense low-margin competitive business, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for Tesla, either.

Lots of unknowns. An autonomous driving service would be a technological marvel, but whether it's much of a business is a whole 'nother story. An instructive example is commercial air travel. To someone in the early 1900's, the idea that people could actually fly in an airplane would have been incredible beyond belief - and the idea that people could fly anywhere in the country for a few day's wages would have seemed utopian. And inexpensive commercial air travel has transformed the world. But the business of air travel has been a horrific one for the companies and their investors, as pithily encapsulated by Warren Buffett's observation that "if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down.”

XLG, an ETF based on the biggest 50 companies in the S&P 500.

DTB,

This surprised me. Jim often says the same thing about the big companies. I think the top 50 companies are the ones to own. When Buffett talks about index investing he almost always says, "stay USA" and "especially the big companies". I also don't think the top 10 companies, with very few exceptions, are that expensive. In fact, I think they might be less expensive than the lower 450. Have you tried to do the math? Curious as to why you don't like the big 50?

You shorted XLG as a hedge and bought Tesla as a hedge to your hedge. Is there a way to hedge your hedge to your hedge?

I know PE is flawed but I do see that XLG is 27.18 and SPY is 25.23 currently.

This surprised me. Jim often says the same thing about the big companies. I think the top 50 companies are the ones to own.

The best way to phrase is is that the top N companies WERE the ones to own, lately. Basically in the last part of the current/recent bull market.
The question is whether that's a trend you want to extrapolate, or whether you want to believe what was normal in them any many decades before.

I don't have infinitely deep data handy, but for example the biggest 5 stocks underperformed the S&P 500 by a remarkable 4.2%/year in the 29 years prior to the most recent decade. There is no valid reason to suppose that they are better than average firms to invest in.

Sure, the biggest are probably better than average businesses, but their business advantage seems statistically smaller than their degree of overvaluation on a given day. You want your money in a top tier firm at a fair price, not a top tier firm at an exuberant price. Transient overvaluation alone is enough to push a merely large firm into the top ranks of market capitalization, and forever over-allocating your money to what's most overvalued is not a winning strategy.

Jim

I also don't think the top 10 companies, with very few exceptions, are that expensive. In fact, I think they might be less expensive than the lower 450. Have you tried to do the math? Curious as to why you don't like the big 50?


Jim has already answered this question better than I would have, but my thinking is that (a) the biggest companies by market cap tend to underperform the average, just by a sort of regression to the mean; (b) that has not been true in the last few years, but that just makes it all the more likely to be true in the next few years, as the weighing machine kicks back in; (c) I agree with you that some of the top 10 companies ma not be overvalued (MSFT, META) but I think 2 of the big 3 (AAPL, NVDA) are way overvalued, and they are already 22% of the capitalization of the top 50 companies. And without analyzing them all one by one, just in the top 25, you've also got JP Morgan Chase (2.2x book), Visa (36x earnings), Lilly (58x), Mastercard (40x), Netflix (56x), Costco (59x), Bank of America, Coca-Cola (29x), and Palantir (100x revenues). These are all priced as though there was never going to be a recession or a trade war! I'm pretty comfortable betting on humdrum smaller companies with low multiples and putting on a 12% hedge (it's actually 11% XLG, and 1% Canadian financials ETF XFN.)



You shorted XLG as a hedge and bought Tesla as a hedge to your hedge. Is there a way to hedge your hedge to your hedge?

No, I didn't really have to hedge out the 3% of 11% (i.e. 0.33%) that Tesla represents, and if so, I wouldn't have a 1% position, I would have a 0.3% position. In fact, this is just my lame excuse to take a flyer on Tesla, on the small chance (20%?) that it will be worth $10t in 5 years instead of $1t. If it does, then my XLG will lose me 3% but my TSLA will win me back 9%, and, more important, I will have bragging rights.

dtb

If it does, then my XLG will lose me 3% but my TSLA will win me back 9%, and, more important, I will have bragging rights.

Forget the pundits who are right, I have immense respect for the self aware investor.

Me, I only invest in weird stuff for the board recs. To drive engagement, say something contentious, right? I like Carmax at these levels, and surely there can be no other reason...

Jim

Let me make the "not bull" case. Musk has criticized Waymo's geofenced with a remote safety driver approach as difficult to scale. Which is true. Thus far, Musk's approach has been to try to solve one hard problem one time and be done rather than solve multiple easier problems many times. Which makes sense.

But Tesla's robotaxi rollout in Austin next month with be geofenced with a safety driver. In other words, Tesla is going with the very approach they have been criticizing for years. That says to me Tesla doesn't believe true FSD will be available any time soon, otherwise why would they even be bothering?

The rollout is tomorrow with details coming out and to my eye it underlines that Tesla is still (1) years away from true, camera-only FSD (2) any true FSD is unlikely to be backwards compatible, to a very substantial degree.

The "launch" itself is very heavily geofenced to remote areas of Austin (among other things, the safe routes in the Austin burbs have been extensively mapped out, with LiDAR), including to avoid tough intersections (per Musk himself), and it has two separate safeties -- a 'monitor' in the passenger seat, with a kill switch, and tele-operators. Inclement weather is out. The test is down to 10 cars and will be restricted to employees and certified superfans. None of this has the look of a camera-only Waymo/Zoox/VW slayer that is just around the corner. Instead, it looks very similar to what Waymo was doing in 2021. Which is fine, unless the whole effort is supposed to justify about 700-800 billion of Tesla's 1 trillion plus valuation.

On the regulatory front, the Texas Legislature has passed SB 2807, a Republican sponsored bill with heavy bipartisan support. I believe Abbott can still veto by tomorrow, but the numbers are close to a 2/3 override: https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?...

The above would take effect September 1 of this year. Media attention has focused on a letter by Austin Dems asking Tesla to comply with the law in advance (Tesla hasn't, from what I gather), but the real issue here is the legislation itself. The text of the statute would seem to place requirements on Tesla that would delay or complicate a real launch for some time, unless Tesla swallows the currently unprofitable Waymo approach whole hog.

All this is leaving aside the continued drop in car sales and the upcoming loss carbon credits, which has formed a substantial portion of Tesla's income for quite some time. And the question of how Tesla sells a new service that will only really be profitable in the Democratic strongholds of urban cores.

My guess is that we get another capital raise before we get any real profits from a robotaxi or robotaxi equivalent, notwithstanding the current healthy balance sheet and cash pile.

FWIW, I held Tesla early on in its history but sold before the meme prices. By the time I sold I could no longer justify the price to myself even with rose coloured glasses, but it's kept on zooming from there. No real regrets on the sale, though.

As you note, self driving taxi services are aimed primarily at urban cores.

Speaking of someone who has visited a few urban cores, I've always wondered what a self driving taxi will smell like without a human driver's presence to encourage civil behaviour.

And one heavily touted advantage of buying the "if/when available" Tesla self driving feature was that your car could be out making money while you sleep. What would your car smell like when it comes back?

At the very least, the entire interior would have to be made of hard plastic or metal like the last of the telephone booths before they went obsolete. But I think a well designed robotaxi would require something like those self-washing public washrooms in France. You leave, the door closes, it hoses itself down, then it's ready for the next customer.

I don't think interior cameras would be a sufficient deterrent...that might introduce a whole other set of interesting behaviour, and I for one would not want to watch the footage.

I'm not saying none of this will happen, or that it won't work when it does, but I think there are some finer points that may need to be worked out...

Jim

i offer an alternative contrarian view to arguing with musk fanboys on any variety of tech fantasies.

this is the type of tech that will mainly benefit the end users, and not deliver huge profits to any car mfg.
fierce competition will force many to offer\evolve some form of 'acceptable' level of driver aid.
after that, its just another boring version of 'mac vs pc' blather.

so given expectations, i am fairly certain that tesla bulls will be the most disappointed regarding financial impact, and eager to move on to another topic.


https://new-normal.com/consumer-demand/robotaxis-t...

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