The expansion of the Unsupervised Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing service in Austin, Texas, got the attention of one of the most avid Tesla (TSLA) investors, Cathie Wood of ARK Invest.
Cathie Wood reached Austin to take a ride in one of the Unsupervised Tesla Robotaxis (Model Y). Interestingly, upon her arrival, as the Robotaxi was waiting for her, the autonomous car got a $75 parking ticket from the local authorities.
In April, Tesla reduced the Robotaxi customer wait time to 7 minutes. The specific Robotaxi waiting for Cathie Wood must have exceeded the time limit in the pickup spot, resulting in a $75 parking ticket.
The optimistic CEO of ARK Invest, Cathie Wood, tagged Elon Musk on X and asked if there’s a solution in sight to this ticketing problem. She wrote:
Hey Elon Musk! I recently experienced
Tesla’s Robotaxi fleet in Austin. Smooth ride, no driver. It’s remarkable to see 10+ years of real-world AI training manifesting in a fully autonomous service.
We did discover a new operating expense line item for our Tesla model: parking tickets. Our Robotaxi got a $75 parking ticket.
How does Tesla plan to handle parking and traffic violations in a Robotaxi world?
Cathie Wood’s Robotaxi Review and Future Forecasts
As the vehicle was driving autonomously on the busy streets of Austin, Texas, Cathie Wood acknowledged that she’s not nervous or worried at all and is not paying attention to what the vehicle is doing.
This freedom allows humans to worry-free experience of work and entertainment during journeys. In the first half of the video, she sat in the front passenger seat of the vehicle, and in the latter half, she moved to the back seat.
Since she’s an investor, her point of view on Tesla’s Robotaxi is different from that of a common person. Cathie Wood thinks that currently, autonomous ride-hailing is in the initial slow phase of innovation.
“As with many new innovations, they come slowly, slowly, and then all at once,” she said. The next phase of autonomous ride-hailing is going to be a much faster rollout, especially from Tesla.
“And I do think that Tesla entering the market is going to give analysts and investors an idea of what ‘all at once’ means, because by the end of the year, they will have statistics that they will be able to use as a basis to forecast next year,” Cathie said.
“And that’s when I think it’s going to hit them how radically the Tesla model is going to change,” she added.
Cathie also thinks that Tesla will have the lion’s share of the future autonomous ride-hailing market. Waymo will be like Lyft vs Uber today.
Tesla Robotaxi Cost Per Mile Forecast
Cathie thinks that as the Tesla Robotaxi fleet grows, the automaker is going to use an umbrella pricing strategy like Uber.
According ot ARK Invest’s internal research, in the start, the Tesla autonomous ride-hailing service is going to cost $2 to $2.5 per mile. However, as the service is scaled, Tesla is going to achieve an ideal cost per mile of 25 cents.
No other autonomous ride-hailing service provider is better equipped than Tesla when it comes to cutting down costs. All other providers are dependent on other manufacturers for cars (Waymo has Jaguar I-Pace, for example).
Tesla is vertically very well integrated when it comes to major components like the cars, FSD chips, and AI software. Cathie thinks that this gives Tesla a very clear edge in cost structure compared to competitors like Waymo.
Safer Than Human Drivers
Tesla Robotaxi ride-hailing is not just going to drive traveling costs down; the AI self-driving technology is also going to make roads safer for everyone. Cathie thinks that this should be realized by the regulators as soon as possible.
“Regulators will be put to shame if they don’t save lives by enabling autonomous mobility everywhere,” she said during her Tesla Robotaxi ride.
The following graph by Tesla shows how data suggests that the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology is already significantly safer than human drivers, and only going to get better with time.
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