[the8472]

In the longer term tesla only needs to survive long enough until autonomous fleets can take over.

Musk's masterplan "Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it" seems like a feint, considering that individual car ownership might go the way of the dodo, outside the luxury segment.

Then again, if residential solar and utility installations can coexist so maybe can different autonomous car utilization models.

[nradov]

People keep saying that individual car ownership will go away. I don't think they understand how most Americans actually use their cars as rolling storage lockers filled with child seats, strollers, snacks, gym bags, tools, firearms, etc. The rental on demand model only works well for childless urbanites. For everyone else it's a huge hassle and not worth the minor cost savings.

[skgoa]

In addition to keeping their stuff in their car, people also want:

* Reliable transportation that is there for them instantly 24/7. A fleet service can not possibly offer this, since they would have so much capacity in reserve for peak usage that they would replicate the whole "cars are only used 4% of the time" inefficiency from the eradication of which they are supposedly going to get their price advantage.

* A status symbol to both feel validated and to "keep up with the Joneses".

* Not share their vehicle with unknown other - possibly "smelly" or "dirty" - people.

* Be able to modify their car as part of expressing themselves.

* The option of driving their car hard on a winding road or taking it to autocross.

Not everyone will care about everything to the same degree an there will be people who will be willing to compromise, if the price is good enough. But you will not see the majority of people stop at least desiring to own a car. I could see the mass market, i.e. the "appliance cars" that are only used to get from A to B, errode away and be replaced by some form of fleet model (ride hailing, leasing, whatever...), while the premium, utility vehicle and sportscar markets are unlikely be threatened.

[the8472]

Let's take a family with two employed parents. They may commute with two sedans to work because either of them might need to pick up the kids or go shopping at a given time.

That's at least one sedan that could be replaced with a ridesharing or 1/2-seater commuter vehicle (based on preference and how shared the route is) and freed up once they're at work. The one that needs to pick up kids can call one a N minutes in advance when they leave work.

Also consider that kids may need to be picked up less often as they grow up and might even be allowed to call their own vehicles as needed, thus freeing up the parents and the need for a sedan. So as the time-window becomes shorter where a family vehicle is needed to be available 24/7 it may become a lot cheaper not owning one.

Autonomous vehicles might also have an indirect impact on shopping behavior if delivery to the home will become cheaper, again reducing the need for large vehicles to transport groceries and other purchases.

There is a lot of optimization potential. But I'll grant that this might take more time to percolate through society longer than tesla can ride on debt, so in the near term they certainly will have to keep delivering owned vehicles.

What I was really aiming for is that the timeframe for tesla to become a global player holding a large fraction of the market share may also be the timeframe for autonomous vehicles to transform the entire transportation sector.

[svachalek]

I tend to agree, but I wonder about the longer term economic trends here. As the middle class disappears, the segment that can't afford a car and/or a garage will grow. And as our infrastructure continues to crumble I wonder about just how much of the road system we will continue to support. We have way too many nice, expensive roads going to places that surely aren't supporting them, tax-wise.

[nradov]

In the past few years total new car sales have been higher than ever before, in both units and dollars. So I don't see any hard evidence for your prediction.