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Tesla's taking a very long view. They are thinking about what the world will look like when autonomous cars are ubiquitous, and then working backwards from some

Tesla's taking a very long view. They are thinking about what the world will look like when autonomous cars are ubiquitous, and then working backwards from some of the pretty gnarly realizations that sink in when you do that sort of thinking. You realize that nobody will care as much about most of the things they currently care about when buying a car. Performance? Mileage? Handling? Horsepower? Fucking irrelevant if I'm chilling in the back seat and my car is just getting me to where I need to go. So what still matters? Price. Comfort. Amenities. The upsell becomes the main sell. At a certain point, Tesla isn't even selling "cars" so much as it's selling mobile offices to one segment, and mobile living rooms to another segment. I could also see Tesla finding a way to place the burden of price elsewhere and offer effectively "free" cars to consumers. For instance, leasing or selling fleets to employers. Or to cities. Or to Uber. Or to Amazon. Uber, on the other hand, sees a world in which nobody owns a car, nobody drives a car, and everyone hails an automated car whenever and wherever. Like that scene in Minority Report. Both of their strategies are banking on the idea that cars, as we currently understand and experience them, will eventually become pure commodities. The difference is that Tesla is seeking margin and Uber is seeking volume. The cliche that Tesla is Apple and Uber is Amazon is sort of true in that respect.

exelius 9y ago
I think Tesla also understands that once autonomous cars are ubiquitous, you won't own one: you'll just rent one for whatever needs you have in that moment. I think the best analog for the market dynamics that this will create is the airline industry -- a fleet of vehicles will be a massive investment, and ongoing maintenance, government oversight, etc. will be similarly cumbersome. But the job of the airline (actually operating the plane) is being done by the company creating the algorithms. That's a market control point that can be leveraged. That's why ultimately, I feel Uber will end up being the Expedia/Priceline of the self-driving car industry. If you don't control the means of value production, you become a middleman. There's a reason they were working on their own self-driving tech rather than licensing from someone else -- everyone who is actually building this tech likely told them "go shove it, we can recreate what you do far easier than you can recreate what we do".
- olivermarks 9y ago
  I suspect Tesla will be the next major story of burn rate fueled firms confronting reality...
  - nojvek 9y ago
    That's what many said about Facebook when they had their crazy valuation. The same was said of Google before they figured out ads. Tesla has a brand value higher than any other car. It's not an app that can be easily replicated. The dynamics are not the same as Uber.
  - exelius 9y ago
    Tesla is a different story entirely. Uber is burning cash by subsidizing operations (aka buying customers); Tesla is spending it on capital assets and R&D. Money spent on operations generally won't benefit you beyond the current quarter; but capital assets (including intellectual property as the result of R&D) retain value over time and often pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time. You'll notice a common thread throughout Elon Musk's "big bets" (Tesla, SpaceX, etc.) He is extremely conservative with operational spending, and all of these companies are very capital-intensive. Just look at the difference between a "Tesla Store" (small, maybe 3 or 4 employees, cars can be stored offsite wherever is cheap) and a normal auto dealership (huge, dozens of employees, majority of expensive real estate is used for parking cars). The Tesla store is very efficient compared to the auto dealer. When you have high capex, it makes it easier to fund your company through debt rather than equity since those loans/bonds are backed by capital assets with a non-zero liquidation value.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  I keep hearing this, but why wouldn't you own one? Part of the reason to own a car is the immediacy of use. I don't want to have to do the equivalent of waiting for a lyft/uber every time I want to run to the grocery store. Sure in large walkable cities with constantly circulating fleets car ownership might go away. For those of us in the suburbs who HAVE to drive everywhere, not so much. Even waiting 5 extra minutes for every errand (optimistic, given that my most recent lyft took 10-15 minutes to arrive) adds up fast. Let alone going out into the rural areas where Uber/Lyft scarcely exist and the nearest human structure can be miles away. I could, however easily see a model where people rent their self-driving car out to Uber/Lyft when they're not using it. Driver fees would be gone, and they could take a greater cut that might even put them towards profitability.
kronos29296 9y ago
Maybe something like Will Smith's car in I,Robot movie is what I imagined while reading this. Faster than a bullet train and automated.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> You realize that nobody will care as much about most of the things they currently care about when buying a car. Performance? Mileage? Handling? Horsepower? Fucking irrelevant if I'm chilling in the back seat and my car is just getting me to where I need to go. Mileage is a critical component of cost of operation, and of range without stopping, which are pretty much (along with capacity and comfort) the things that matter most if you aren't driving and the car is just taking you from A to B. That's even true if you don't own it (even the cost factor, since that—assuming an efficient market—still controls what you'll pay to use it.)

exelius 9y ago

I think Tesla also understands that once autonomous cars are ubiquitous, you won't own one: you'll just rent one for whatever needs you have in that moment. I think the best analog for the market dynamics that this will create is the airline industry -- a fleet of vehicles will be a massive investment, and ongoing maintenance, government oversight, etc. will be similarly cumbersome. But the job of the airline (actually operating the plane) is being done by the company creating the algorithms. That's a market control point that can be leveraged. That's why ultimately, I feel Uber will end up being the Expedia/Priceline of the self-driving car industry. If you don't control the means of value production, you become a middleman. There's a reason they were working on their own self-driving tech rather than licensing from someone else -- everyone who is actually building this tech likely told them "go shove it, we can recreate what you do far easier than you can recreate what we do".

olivermarks 9y ago
I suspect Tesla will be the next major story of burn rate fueled firms confronting reality...
- nojvek 9y ago
  That's what many said about Facebook when they had their crazy valuation. The same was said of Google before they figured out ads. Tesla has a brand value higher than any other car. It's not an app that can be easily replicated. The dynamics are not the same as Uber.
- exelius 9y ago
  Tesla is a different story entirely. Uber is burning cash by subsidizing operations (aka buying customers); Tesla is spending it on capital assets and R&D. Money spent on operations generally won't benefit you beyond the current quarter; but capital assets (including intellectual property as the result of R&D) retain value over time and often pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time. You'll notice a common thread throughout Elon Musk's "big bets" (Tesla, SpaceX, etc.) He is extremely conservative with operational spending, and all of these companies are very capital-intensive. Just look at the difference between a "Tesla Store" (small, maybe 3 or 4 employees, cars can be stored offsite wherever is cheap) and a normal auto dealership (huge, dozens of employees, majority of expensive real estate is used for parking cars). The Tesla store is very efficient compared to the auto dealer. When you have high capex, it makes it easier to fund your company through debt rather than equity since those loans/bonds are backed by capital assets with a non-zero liquidation value.
scottLobster 9y ago
I keep hearing this, but why wouldn't you own one? Part of the reason to own a car is the immediacy of use. I don't want to have to do the equivalent of waiting for a lyft/uber every time I want to run to the grocery store. Sure in large walkable cities with constantly circulating fleets car ownership might go away. For those of us in the suburbs who HAVE to drive everywhere, not so much. Even waiting 5 extra minutes for every errand (optimistic, given that my most recent lyft took 10-15 minutes to arrive) adds up fast. Let alone going out into the rural areas where Uber/Lyft scarcely exist and the nearest human structure can be miles away. I could, however easily see a model where people rent their self-driving car out to Uber/Lyft when they're not using it. Driver fees would be gone, and they could take a greater cut that might even put them towards profitability.

kronos29296 9y ago

Maybe something like Will Smith's car in I,Robot movie is what I imagined while reading this. Faster than a bullet train and automated.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> You realize that nobody will care as much about most of the things they currently care about when buying a car. Performance? Mileage? Handling? Horsepower? Fucking irrelevant if I'm chilling in the back seat and my car is just getting me to where I need to go. Mileage is a critical component of cost of operation, and of range without stopping, which are pretty much (along with capacity and comfort) the things that matter most if you aren't driving and the car is just taking you from A to B. That's even true if you don't own it (even the cost factor, since that—assuming an efficient market—still controls what you'll pay to use it.)