5 ms·

If they could do it for next year, why don't they just do it and profit alone, not selling the autonomous cars to anyone -- and make trillions? :-) It is prob

If they could do it for next year, why don't they just do it and profit alone, not selling the autonomous cars to anyone -- and make trillions? :-) It is probably because they can't

oh_sigh 8y ago
They kind of are - usually with car leases there is the ability to buy the car at the end of your contract, but not with new tesla leases(because they will put those vehicles into the autonomous fleet).
- jsight 8y ago
  I'm a little more cynical about that, tbh. I feel like they will ultimately offer most of these to the leasee as a purchase option, they just aren't providing the buyout price up-front.
  - twoodfin 8y ago
    My guess is that they will enforce it on the assumption that most leasees will just re-up with a new Tesla. Meanwhile Tesla can get more heavily into the resale game and hit lower price points by selling the same car twice.
    - jsight 8y ago
      That is possible, I guess, but they've done really badly as a purveyor of used cars in the past. It doesn't exactly seem like a profit center for them.
moduspol 8y ago
Because they also need money now, so they started leasing Model 3 and telling lessees that Tesla will be keeping the car after the lease expires. They get money now and keep the car for use as a robo-taxi.
- hi5eyes 8y ago
  "use as a robot-taxi"
  - moduspol 8y ago
    They're calling them robo-taxis, and who knows if they'll succeed, but I did want to point out that what they're doing isn't inconsistent with a company that genuinely believes in its near-future autonomous capabilities but also needs cash.
    - loceng 8y ago
      Likewise, they can still compete: as a driver would you rather be "driving" in a 99% of the time self-driving vehicles that's a Tesla, and as a passenger: would you rather order a vehicle from Tesla Network and know you're guaranteed to be picked up in a Tesla - with cameras for safety, security - in a quiet vehicle, etc. Tesla owning/controlling the whole supply line and at the scale they're ramping up for gives them advantage. And if they do reach fully self-driving first - and someone will have to lead the way and prove it enough for regulators to allow them on the roads - then they'll have everything else already in place to relatively speaking own/efficiently capture a large portion of the market.
- specialp 8y ago
  What an outrageous hedge story that I am shocked anyone believes. Tesla needed to lease model 3s because - They were horribly late in delivering the car (and now claim they are going to have fully autonomous taxis by next year when they couldn't even deliver on a basic car on time) - They can't make the $35k car they promised without losing money - They have exhausted the market of people that will pay 50k for an electric car knowing the fuel savings will never make up for the premium so they have excess inventory - They now are low on cash, high on inventory so they make up this moonshot story to get people to invest in them again. Simply saying they are doing standard leases would be too honest. The day is going to come soon where the amount of people that believe the hype will dwindle and the debt will pile up even more where there is a liquidity crisis. It is essentially a legal pyramid scheme. I have to hand it to them though being able to convince a good amount of people that their leasing is actually ensuring a future supply of robo taxis is impressive. One day people will laugh at the outrageousness of that.
loceng 8y ago
If you have a game plan that you know will work (whether you believe that or not) and all you need is more capital to ramp things up, to reduce costs, and scale exponentially faster than competitors - it's smart to allow individuals to be or feel like they're making an investment by contributing to something like the Tesla Network; as Elon mentioned in the long presentation they recently did it will be good for them to get the capital upfront.
WhompingWindows 8y ago
They'd need millions of cars to make trillions of dollars. They can't afford the capital to buy millions of their own cars. They are primarily a car company, they sell cars, any additional revenue due to autonomous tech would be gravy on top of their current margins. They might raise prices, actually, if their cars are proven to be able to do ride-sharing autonomously.

If they could do it for next year, why don't they just do it and profit alone, not selling the autonomous cars to anyone -- and make trillions? :-) It is probably because they can't

oh_sigh 8y ago

They kind of are - usually with car leases there is the ability to buy the car at the end of your contract, but not with new tesla leases(because they will put those vehicles into the autonomous fleet).

jsight 8y ago
I'm a little more cynical about that, tbh. I feel like they will ultimately offer most of these to the leasee as a purchase option, they just aren't providing the buyout price up-front.
- twoodfin 8y ago
  My guess is that they will enforce it on the assumption that most leasees will just re-up with a new Tesla. Meanwhile Tesla can get more heavily into the resale game and hit lower price points by selling the same car twice.
  - jsight 8y ago
    That is possible, I guess, but they've done really badly as a purveyor of used cars in the past. It doesn't exactly seem like a profit center for them.

moduspol 8y ago

Because they also need money now, so they started leasing Model 3 and telling lessees that Tesla will be keeping the car after the lease expires. They get money now and keep the car for use as a robo-taxi.

hi5eyes 8y ago
"use as a robot-taxi"
- moduspol 8y ago
  They're calling them robo-taxis, and who knows if they'll succeed, but I did want to point out that what they're doing isn't inconsistent with a company that genuinely believes in its near-future autonomous capabilities but also needs cash.
  - loceng 8y ago
    Likewise, they can still compete: as a driver would you rather be "driving" in a 99% of the time self-driving vehicles that's a Tesla, and as a passenger: would you rather order a vehicle from Tesla Network and know you're guaranteed to be picked up in a Tesla - with cameras for safety, security - in a quiet vehicle, etc. Tesla owning/controlling the whole supply line and at the scale they're ramping up for gives them advantage. And if they do reach fully self-driving first - and someone will have to lead the way and prove it enough for regulators to allow them on the roads - then they'll have everything else already in place to relatively speaking own/efficiently capture a large portion of the market.
specialp 8y ago
What an outrageous hedge story that I am shocked anyone believes. Tesla needed to lease model 3s because - They were horribly late in delivering the car (and now claim they are going to have fully autonomous taxis by next year when they couldn't even deliver on a basic car on time) - They can't make the $35k car they promised without losing money - They have exhausted the market of people that will pay 50k for an electric car knowing the fuel savings will never make up for the premium so they have excess inventory - They now are low on cash, high on inventory so they make up this moonshot story to get people to invest in them again. Simply saying they are doing standard leases would be too honest. The day is going to come soon where the amount of people that believe the hype will dwindle and the debt will pile up even more where there is a liquidity crisis. It is essentially a legal pyramid scheme. I have to hand it to them though being able to convince a good amount of people that their leasing is actually ensuring a future supply of robo taxis is impressive. One day people will laugh at the outrageousness of that.

loceng 8y ago

If you have a game plan that you know will work (whether you believe that or not) and all you need is more capital to ramp things up, to reduce costs, and scale exponentially faster than competitors - it's smart to allow individuals to be or feel like they're making an investment by contributing to something like the Tesla Network; as Elon mentioned in the long presentation they recently did it will be good for them to get the capital upfront.

WhompingWindows 8y ago

They'd need millions of cars to make trillions of dollars. They can't afford the capital to buy millions of their own cars. They are primarily a car company, they sell cars, any additional revenue due to autonomous tech would be gravy on top of their current margins. They might raise prices, actually, if their cars are proven to be able to do ride-sharing autonomously.