Worthwhile to mass-produce them at that cost? LOL
Seriously as factory worker replacements? If FSD never works why would something as complicated or more complicated work?
Dell has a system for this! LOL
I agree - but in a world with robotaxis, isn’t the “absolute cheapest” mode of transportation going to be the robotaxi? And conversely, isn’t the target market for the robotaxi going to be the people who just want to get from point A to point B - and don’t need or want their cars to do much else?
It just seems like there’s some tension between Tesla’s autonomy vision of the world (autonomy is coming in a few years and will cost more than $10K as an option) and there being a continued low-end mass market for “econo” cars.
I mean, personally I think that there isn’t going to be much of a market for robotaxis, because the operating expenses and deadheading costs will make them less attractive than ownership for regular users. But Tesla’s vision is that robotaxis will be a huge thing and a big market…which doesn’t seem to leave much room for the low-end mass market A-to-B car.
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I would think that the robotaxi market should be at least as large as that of Uber/taxi/rental cars. In addition, I suspect robotaxis will reduce the need for many households to own that 2nd and 3rd car. It should also be very popular with the growing senior demographic and in any city where parking is scarce and expensive.
I think households will still probably want to own one car, particularly if the car requires no maintenance. I suspect the change will be more in a reduction of multiple car households than an increase in no car households. That’s still a pretty large US market and the Model 2 will be competing with the Honda Accord demographic.
I also suspect the Model 2 will be the primary Tesla export to South America, Asia, and India.
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I think you are making a logical mistake here.
- Not all Uber/X drivers are full time. They also use their car for other purposes so much of the expense of the vehicle can be assigned to personal use and for which no profit need be generated. By contrast, a robo taxi would need to be profitable for the duration of usage. Uber drivers do not have the same constraint.
For example, you will find an Uber driver is rural America because it can be a very temporary and PT job. A rob taxi 100 miles from a major city would sit unused for too many hours of the day and no one is going to wait half an hour for that robo taxi to move to a new pick up location.
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I think you a drastically over-estimating the willingness of the car rental market to give up control. There was already a backlash against EV rentals for the forced complexity on unsuspecting drivers. I think car rental companies would be many many years away from mass adoption if the vehicles were ready today - simply because of the risk involved (thanks Hertz!) to a consumer base that is already often nervous about driving in an unfamiliar city and now they are forced to learn a new mode of transportation? Color me skeptical.
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I also think you are over estimating just how willing seniors, especially solo (women) drivers, would be to hop into a completely autonomous vehicle. I can only speak from anecdotal experience from working with senior clients daily and I would bet money that less than a quarter of them (and even fewer of the women) would be so trusting.
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Perhaps, though that’s not especially large. Figure, what, maybe three million cars or so in the US for rentals and rideshare together? That might seem like a lot, but it’s barely 1-2% of the total vehicle fleet.
The second/third vehicle pool is bigger…but of those households that own multiple cars today, how many are going to end up with a $25K model as their remaining single car? I suspect not very many - if you’re keeping a car because you prefer the experience of riding in your own vehicle rather than sharing, it’s probably the cheaper/smaller model that you’re letting go of, and keeping the larger vehicle.
I don’t know…seems like there’s a lot of overlap between the customers that are intended to be served by a small, cheap “utilitarian” passenger car (probably not a truck) and the robotaxi.
Additionally, what about seniors that have wheel chairs or need (or think they might need) physical assistance to get in or out of the vehicle?
Mike
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No big deal. Not as many needed (smaller population needs that specialized vehicle), so cost-effective to design and build a vehicle (i.e. significant number of them) for that market and have it available for them to use when needed. Remember: This type of vehicle would be used/needed by a much larger group of people in the general public–but not all at the same time. People get hurt/injured doing a wide variety things (sports, work, hunting/fishing, and so on), so they would need such a vehicle for a few days/weeks/months. They would also be glad they did not have to buy/rent such a specialized vehicle–and so would the insurance companies.