No. of Recommendations: 14
Let me make the "not bull" case. Musk has criticized Waymo's geofenced with a remote safety driver approach as difficult to scale. Which is true. Thus far, Musk's approach has been to try to solve one hard problem one time and be done rather than solve multiple easier problems many times. Which makes sense.
But Tesla's robotaxi rollout in Austin next month with be geofenced with a safety driver. In other words, Tesla is going with the very approach they have been criticizing for years. That says to me Tesla doesn't believe true FSD will be available any time soon, otherwise why would they even be bothering?The rollout is tomorrow with details coming out and to my eye it underlines that Tesla is still (1) years away from true, camera-only FSD (2) any true FSD is unlikely to be backwards compatible, to a very substantial degree.
The "launch" itself is very heavily geofenced to remote areas of Austin (among other things, the safe routes in the Austin burbs have been extensively mapped out, with LiDAR), including to avoid tough intersections (per Musk himself), and it has two separate safeties -- a 'monitor' in the passenger seat, with a kill switch, and tele-operators. Inclement weather is out. The test is down to 10 cars and will be restricted to employees and certified superfans. None of this has the look of a camera-only Waymo/Zoox/VW slayer that is just around the corner. Instead, it looks very similar to what Waymo was doing in 2021. Which is fine, unless the whole effort is supposed to justify about 700-800 billion of Tesla's 1 trillion plus valuation.
On the regulatory front, the Texas Legislature has passed SB 2807, a Republican sponsored bill with heavy bipartisan support. I believe Abbott can still veto by tomorrow, but the numbers are close to a 2/3 override:
https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?...The above would take effect September 1 of this year. Media attention has focused on a letter by Austin Dems asking Tesla to comply with the law in advance (Tesla hasn't, from what I gather), but the real issue here is the legislation itself. The text of the statute would seem to place requirements on Tesla that would delay or complicate a real launch for some time, unless Tesla swallows the currently unprofitable Waymo approach whole hog.
All this is leaving aside the continued drop in car sales and the upcoming loss carbon credits, which has formed a substantial portion of Tesla's income for quite some time. And the question of how Tesla sells a new service that will only really be profitable in the Democratic strongholds of urban cores.
My guess is that we get another capital raise before we get any real profits from a robotaxi or robotaxi equivalent, notwithstanding the current healthy balance sheet and cash pile.
FWIW, I held Tesla early on in its history but sold before the meme prices. By the time I sold I could no longer justify the price to myself even with rose coloured glasses, but it's kept on zooming from there. No real regrets on the sale, though.
