Elon Musk is pretending like Tesla can make money from this self-driving taxi idea.
You can't make money from self-driving Taxis if Google/Waymo simply offers a similar service for cheaper right next to you. And yes, Google/Waymo has the vertical integration thing all figured out too.
Now if you think that maybe Tesla's chip is useful for its M3 customers... sure. I strongly disagree with that fact, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion on that subject. My main issue is that Elon Musk is trying to sell this idea... that Tesla can actually raise money by going into self-driving taxis.
That's completely hogwash. Completely. There's not a chance of that at all. The other companies are too far ahead, and Tesla doesn't have enough cash to enter that fledgling industry.
Tesla isn't a tech company anymore, its a car company. It built a $2.5 Billion factory that can only produce cars, and its stuck with that (and its associated loans). Elon Musk can't just pivot into a new industry with all of these loans weighing down on his company.
Now, maybe if Elon Musk wanted to start a new company, one that wasn't burdened by all of the Gigafactory Debt, to tackle the self-driving problem... well... maybe that would work. But Tesla has already bet its life on wide-scale deployment of the Model 3. It doesn't have any other chances. It simply doesn't have the money to do anything else, or to pivot anymore.
And Waymo has self-driving, with 10,000 miles per 2 or 3 disengagements... deployed right now in Phoenix Arizona.
Safety drivers are still necessary for both. But the number of times the safety-driver interacts in Waymo/Google's car is way way less.
EDIT: Actually, I'm not sure about Tesla's numbers. I heard 1 per 3 miles but I couldn't prove it through a google search. In any case, Tesla doesn't seem to be bragging about its disengagement rate, so I bet it isn't very good.
Vertical integration is dead in the automotive sector for decades. There are Ford Motor Companies of old anymore with their proper plantation to get the rubber for their proper tyres. And there are reasons for that, hard learned ones. Not sure why that would be any different for chips.
First, the likes of nVidia have a much larger customer base and thus a better risk profile. Also, chips are their core competency. And second, running your own chip production is capital intensive, not so great when you are already in a tight financial situation.
You can't make money from self-driving Taxis if Google/Waymo simply offers a similar service for cheaper right next to you. And yes, Google/Waymo has the vertical integration thing all figured out too.
Now if you think that maybe Tesla's chip is useful for its M3 customers... sure. I strongly disagree with that fact, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion on that subject. My main issue is that Elon Musk is trying to sell this idea... that Tesla can actually raise money by going into self-driving taxis.
That's completely hogwash. Completely. There's not a chance of that at all. The other companies are too far ahead, and Tesla doesn't have enough cash to enter that fledgling industry.
Tesla isn't a tech company anymore, its a car company. It built a $2.5 Billion factory that can only produce cars, and its stuck with that (and its associated loans). Elon Musk can't just pivot into a new industry with all of these loans weighing down on his company.
Now, maybe if Elon Musk wanted to start a new company, one that wasn't burdened by all of the Gigafactory Debt, to tackle the self-driving problem... well... maybe that would work. But Tesla has already bet its life on wide-scale deployment of the Model 3. It doesn't have any other chances. It simply doesn't have the money to do anything else, or to pivot anymore.