[erikpukinskis]

> Who is paying for the cost of the car up front? That is the person who is carrying the capex and credit risk of this operation.

Banks, ostensibly. That's what banks do, buy credit risk.

Or Tesla might just take the risk themselves, they continue to be in a reasonable position to raise cash. That's not typical for them though, they've traditionally relied on banks for consumer financing.

This is speculation now, but I get the vibe from Elon that he is interested in a revenue share in the ridesharing world, but that he doesn't think Tesla should be own its own fleet. That puts them into a much more airy fairy financial model, and I think Elon likes the economics of selling cars. Tesla is already a hard enough sell on Wall Street as it is, without a big fleet of cars depreciating on the books.

[bduerst]

That is fundamentally not how banks work - they lend money to the manufacturer or the driver, meaning the latter two pay the cost and carry the risk. Banks are not paying the cost.

Tesla has issues with cash and liabilities at the moment, and I highly doubt that any type of scheme like you're describing would be floated by them in the near future.