The Chief Executive Officer of the established ridesharing company Uber stimulated some buzz when he questioned the viability of Tesla’s Robotaxi plans in a popular talk show on Friday.
Tesla’s Robotaxi business model
Tesla plans to establish its own autonomous vehicle fleet with its Robotaxi, which CEO Elon Musk calls “Cybercab.”
“Tesla will be some combination of Airbnb and Uber. At any time, they can have the car come back to them, like Airbnb for cars.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk
It will basically allow owners to “add or subtract their cars from the fleet whenever they want.” They can also decide who can book their Tesla cars, such as friends, families, 5-star users, or anyone.
CEO Musk claims that Tesla owners could earn up to $30,000 a year from this business, excluding Tesla’s 25%-30% cut from those rides.
The company plans to integrate the ride-hailing service into the Tesla app.
Tesla’s Robotaxi plans under scrutiny as Uber CEO expresses doubts
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi guested on the Logan Bartlett Show on YouTube on Friday, with the episode revolving around autonomous vehicles.
Intriguingly, the Uber boss shared his doubts about Tesla’s Robotaxi plans. CEO Khosrowshahi asserted it “wasn’t clear” to him that Tesla owners would want their cars “be ridden in by a complete stranger.”
CEO Khosrowshahi also noted that peak ride-sharing times will likely overlap with the times Tesla owners need to use their cars.
“Probably the times at which you’re going to want your Tesla are probably going to be the same times that ridership is going to be at a peak.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
In comparison, Khosrowshahi explained that Uber can easily increase the number of part-time drivers to adhere to demand, especially during rush hours.
The Uber boss also expressed doubts about the people’s readiness to adopt self-driving vehicles.
“Logic would dictate that if robots are twice as good a driver or three times as good as drivers as humans, that’s good for society going forward, but I honestly don’t know if society’s ready to accept that.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
In addition, CEO Khosrowshahi pointed out that Elon Musk might be underrating a crucial part of the ridesharing business. He emphasized the significant difference between launching a ridesharing fleet and a carmaking business.
“It’s a really, really different business you know, as well as talking about hardware, to build a $20,000 or $50,000 piece of hardware from driving over 30 million transactions every day that on a revenue basis you make $2 off of. It’s just a very, very different business.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
CEO Khosrowshahi also outlined the additional platforms that aspiring companies need to develop to prepare for worst-case scenarios in a ridesharing vehicle.
After outlining his numerous apprehensions about Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, CEO Khosrowshahi hinted at Uber’s interest in partnering with the electric vehicle giant to bypass the major challenges he mentioned.
“It’s taken us 15 years. It’s taken us tens of billions of dollars of capital, and we can provide that instantly to a partner. Hopefully, Tesla will be one of those partners.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi
Tesla Robotaxi debut
Tesla originally planned to debut its Robotaxi on August 8, 2024. However, CEO Musk delayed the unveiling event to October 10, 2024.
According to the Teska boss’ announcement, the delay would enable the company to “make some important changes” to further refine the highly anticipated Robotaxi and “show off a few other things.” CEO Musk also specified that he requested several front design changes.
It would be interesting to see if Tesla would take CEO Khosrowshahi’s suggestion to partner instead of establishing its own ridesharing platform, potentially enabling it to bypass major challenges that Uber already encountered and solved.
Presented below is the full interview with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi:
