Lots of these products and services are nowhere near maturity, but the stock market is the sum of all future revenue streams weighted for probability. There is a potential future in which many of us get our energy from Tesla solar panels, that energy is stored in Tesla battery, we use that to power our autonomous Tesla cars that we either own or call to us with a ridesharing app, all while Tesla owned and operated trucks cross the nation autonomously. I don't think that is a particularly likely outcome, but there is a way for Tesla to get there while there is a near zero chance Volkswagen has a similar future.
The belief is that they will follow the same path for both ridesharing and trucking. If and when Autopilot is able to handle fully autonomous driving, Tesla will turn on that ability for owners to rent out their vehicle with Tesla taking a cut. Once that is successful, Tesla would then start to build its own internal fleet of autonomous vehicles to rent out and take all the revenue. This Tesla owned fleet would be the second stage because the vehicles themselves have a huge upfront costs. There is no point in incurring that upfront cost until the system has proven to be profitable among existing Tesla owners.
Lots of these products and services are nowhere near maturity, but the stock market is the sum of all future revenue streams weighted for probability. There is a potential future in which many of us get our energy from Tesla solar panels, that energy is stored in Tesla battery, we use that to power our autonomous Tesla cars that we either own or call to us with a ridesharing app, all while Tesla owned and operated trucks cross the nation autonomously. I don't think that is a particularly likely outcome, but there is a way for Tesla to get there while there is a near zero chance Volkswagen has a similar future.