[jaredklewis]

Why would a robotics company justify higher valuations? Isn’t that going to be a capital intensive, low margin race to the bottom like cars?

Seems like only pure software businesses (which are extremely capital light and often come with network or lock in effects) can justify the really crazy valuations.

[Ekaros]

Thinking of it, is there anything Tesla is involved in that isn't in the end capital intensive needing to build actual things with possible competition driving margins down?

Hell, even robotaxis will have price pressure if market affords say 3 or 4 players. Not many will pay double compared to competition.

[conscion]

The robotaxi evaluation only made sense when they claimed to be years ahead of competitors. A robotaxi service operating in a regular taxi market could have large margins. But Waymo is already operating, any Tesla robotaxi company is going to compete away all the margin with Waymo.

[jfengel]

As I understand it, Waymo is restricted to areas that it has mapped extremely well, i.e. major cities.

Which also happens to be where most of the money would be, so it's probably a good bet. Tesla seems to be hoping to displace Uber in the suburbs, while being an also-ran against Waymo in the denser downtowns. That includes ferrying a fair number of people into and out of cities, where Waymo can't (currently) go.

That's probably not as lucrative as Waymo's core market, but it could have some decent margins.