Have a look at the move from selling software to providing software as a service. You can make more money, more steadily, if you do not sell a product once but

Have a look at the move from selling software to providing software as a service. You can make more money, more steadily, if you do not sell a product once but by one having recurrent payments and two by extending the user base to customers who could not afford the cost of the product otherwise. Applying this line of thinking here: paying 50000 € for a Tesla might not be affordable to a lot of people ever. Paying a low amount to be driven by a Tesla taxi service? Absolutely possible. Autonomous driving means no drivers to pay, also no driving times to observe or cars to transfer between drivers when shifts change. Provided there are enough customers, such an autonomous taxi car could drive all day long, except for charging and maintenance. Depending on the price of rides and the lifetime of such a heavily used car, it might indeed be a lot more profitable to include it into a pool of autonomous taxis instead of selling it to a customer at current prices. The prediction of this acquaintance might not be too far off if Tesla ever manages to make full self-driving work.