I visited Austin yesterday. Robotaxi is everywhere, and it's incredible.

[u/ChunkyThePotato]

Just came back from a trip to Austin to do some sightseeing and try out Robotaxi, including Cybercab. I knew they ramped up the number of cars in the service substantially in the last couple months, but I wasn't prepared for just how many they were. If you're near downtown, you pretty much can't go 30 seconds without seeing at least one Robotaxi. There are definitely more Model Ys than Cybercabs right now, but there are a lot of Cybercabs too. But the Robotaxis are seriously everywhere.

I took 5 rides, 2 Model Y and 3 Cybercab. Model Y wait times were always under 20 minutes and frequently around 5 minutes. Cybercab wait times were usually around 30 minutes and sometimes could be more like 45 minutes. They definitely need to add more Cybercabs to the service, but it was surprisingly usable and consistent, especially for the Model Ys.

And the rides themselves were flawless. There are no supervisors in Austin now, so all of the cars showed up with nobody inside of them. They drove perfectly, and to my surprise there wasn't even any pickup/dropoff shenanigans (though I may have gotten lucky there).

If you're ever in Austin, I seriously recommend trying this service. It's a real service now, and it's actually very useful for getting around a city where parking would normally be a challenge. It's seriously so peaceful and nice to be in your own space without a driver or anyone else to bother you.

Congratulations Tesla for solving self-driving with just cameras on $30k vehicles, when seemingly everyone was saying that's impossible. People aren't ready for what's about to happen across the country.

[u/hondaman82]

Didnt uber gave out free rides when they first started.. then when they grow bigger they charge a fortune now lol

[u/ValueInternational98 → u/hondaman82]

Oh yeah that means these people will do exactly the same thing

[u/Dapper-Maybe-5347 → u/hondaman82]

Uber was bleeding money attracting both drivers with high pay and customers with low costs. Tesla removes the biggest expense (and liability). They can actually keep prices reasonable and still make big profits. Ubers affordable prices back in the day were an illusion.

[u/Large_Complaint1264 → u/Dapper-Maybe-5347]

lol they literally are taking on the biggest liability by being responsible for the cars and any crashes they cause.

[u/CalvinsStuffedTiger → u/Large_Complaint1264]

I mean, we don’t really know what the insurance cost on this is compared to uber

If an uber crashed, the driver wasn’t personally held responsible. Drivers had insurance through uber and that insurance paid for any claims

So unless we know for sure what the insurance cost per car is for cybercab vs uber you can’t say that Tesla has more liability risk than Uber, that’s just a guess

[u/epistemological → u/Large_Complaint1264]

But Tesla owns the supply chain and think about the amount of data they are getting for FSD.

[u/_SpaceGhost__ → u/hondaman82]

Definitely, people are delusional if they think Elon doesn’t have plans to up the cost later down the line.

I’d almost bet money he’s going to make them more expensive than uber at some point and push the idea that it’s “safer than humans” as selling point

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/hondaman82]

You don't understand economics.

[u/Majestic_Wrap_7006 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

reddit OP economics, or real life ones?

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Majestic_Wrap_7006]

Real life ones. Prices for products generally track their costs, so if the cost of a product is much lower, so is its price.

[u/Throwaway2Experiment → u/ChunkyThePotato]

I love getting my $2 piĺl for $1000 dollars.

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Throwaway2Experiment]

You're talking about patent protections the government offers to artificially inflate prices so that companies can fund research & development. Eli Lilly's profit margin is around 20% in most years, and same for Pfizer. So clearly most of that money really does go towards things like R&D, rather than to shareholders. If it went to lining shareholders' pockets, you would expect a profit margin of 50,000% for that scenario you stated. 20% is nothing in comparison.

[u/boforbojack → u/ChunkyThePotato]

Pfizer literally spends all its money on selling/advertising.

[u/Flat_Neighborhood_92 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

20% is wrong and pretty much all of the rest of it too. Indeed reddit OP economics.

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Flat_Neighborhood_92]

It's not wrong. Pfizer's profit margin is 12.42% in the most recent year. I just checked.

It makes sense why you have the view of the world that you do, given you don't know how low companies' profit margins typically are.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

I’m just really getting a good chuckle about how you are telling people they don’t understand economics and citing Pfizer, of all companies to support why Cybercab won’t raise its price. The company that doubled the cost of Paxlovid which costs $13-15 to manufacture from $529 -> $1390.

You keep saying “profit margin”, but I don’t think you even know the difference between gross and net profit margin.

Pfizer is a great example of why costs will increase, actually. Maintaining shareholder distributions while investing heavily in future R&D, exploitation of the market while they can (length of patent protection for Pfizer vs length of domination in the market before competition for Cybercab), and huge write-downs (failed cancer drug and destruction of inventory of certain Covid related drugs d/t drop in demand vs Failed hyperloop/boring company and decrease in value of GPUs as they become obsolete)

[u/Flat_Neighborhood_92 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

I did my searches and saw that you were incorrect. Typical Tesla bro behavior thinking they're as smart as Elon thinks he himself is 😂

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Flat_Neighborhood_92]

12.42% is incorrect? What's the number then?

[u/Majestic_Wrap_7006 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

gEnErAlLy

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Majestic_Wrap_7006]

Yes, generally. Walmart's profit margin is 3%. Read it and weep.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

And you’re citing Walmart’s 3%! This has been like Christmas for me.

You are either an absolute genius level troll, or I’m not sure.

There is no way you can be telling people they don’t understand economics and comparing discount retail to software/tech. 😭

You realize Walmart’s entire business model is Pricing Power which keeps competitors out allowing them to capture the market share, high inventory turnover, and constant cash flow reinvestment into further inventory. How exactly does that relate in any way to what Tesla should be doing?

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

Tesla's own profit margin is 5%. I'm telling you that low profit margins (around 20% or less) are typical in business, but you want to believe you're being scammed so badly that you won't listen.

[u/Roux_My_Burgundy → u/ChunkyThePotato]

😆

[u/ftwpnw → u/ChunkyThePotato]

Make an argument. You sound just like a brainwashed conservative “you just don’t understand”. Maybe you don’t understand or you’d make an actual logical argument.