What, no actual calculation of costs? I was surprised. So I went and looked it up or you. Uber charges up to 2 bucks a mile, and a new Model 3 costs less than $30K with rebates, so for 15K miles of rides, the car pays for itself. Using your number of 250K miles per car, that's a cool half million earned from a $30K investment. Sound like a great deal to me!
I've done the calculations many times, but the key point is that while Uber charges $2/mile or so (with a minimum of $8 to $10) the demand at that price is modest. Uber only had $34B of revenue in the last year. You may say that's a lot, but it's not for Alphabet, and Uber only gets 25% of that, and really much less (it doesn't make much profit.)
Robotaxi service is great, but it's the profits that matter, not the revenue. And when a million other Tesla owners are competing with you, profits will be minimized. Plus millions of other robotaxis are competing with you.
In a competitive, large marketplace, you don't get $2/mile. $1/mile will be lucky. Really you will get the underlying cost plus a modest margin. Perhaps you make 5 cents/mile of profit. 250,000 miles then is $12,500 of profit -- doesn't even pay the $15K fee for FSD.
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Autological
Fri, 2023-07-21 09:26
Permalink
Where's the math?
What, no actual calculation of costs? I was surprised. So I went and looked it up or you. Uber charges up to 2 bucks a mile, and a new Model 3 costs less than $30K with rebates, so for 15K miles of rides, the car pays for itself. Using your number of 250K miles per car, that's a cool half million earned from a $30K investment. Sound like a great deal to me!
brad
Fri, 2023-07-21 16:00
Permalink
No calculation
I've done the calculations many times, but the key point is that while Uber charges $2/mile or so (with a minimum of $8 to $10) the demand at that price is modest. Uber only had $34B of revenue in the last year. You may say that's a lot, but it's not for Alphabet, and Uber only gets 25% of that, and really much less (it doesn't make much profit.)
Robotaxi service is great, but it's the profits that matter, not the revenue. And when a million other Tesla owners are competing with you, profits will be minimized. Plus millions of other robotaxis are competing with you.
In a competitive, large marketplace, you don't get $2/mile. $1/mile will be lucky. Really you will get the underlying cost plus a modest margin. Perhaps you make 5 cents/mile of profit. 250,000 miles then is $12,500 of profit -- doesn't even pay the $15K fee for FSD.
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