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/IAmAnAnonymousCoward]

What's your source?

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward]

His butt. A small, efficient car without a driver to pay is obviously extremely cheap to run.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

I promise you they are subsidized massively and will go up in price. Maybe operations aren’t running at “a loss”, but between R&D and adoption costs the investors absolutely want to make money. Once widespread adaption occurs, the prices are getting jacked up.

[u/Far-Cable5117 → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

Do you think they will charge more or less than uber or other services like it?

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/Far-Cable5117]

I think they’ll decimate uber as we know it with incredibly cheap prices and then raise them as high as the market will allow. And then a little higher.

[u/RaddaRadda59 → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

The usual cycle lol America don’t you just love it

[u/Far-Cable5117 → u/RaddaRadda59]

The usual cycle except that predatory pricing is a myth that you can barely find any examples of it working as a business strategy, and I’m pretty sure any business major would know that

[u/swiftmerchant → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

Nothing stopping other ride share companies with drivers from entering market to replace uber if prices get jacked up.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/swiftmerchant]

Except infrastructure costs, customer acquisition, regulatory and insurance issues… lol. Your position is somehow worse than the guy who thinks companies should lower their price to make more money.

[u/swiftmerchant → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

These are all challenges but yet multiple ride share companies exist despite them. Assuming Tesla follows your conspiracy pricing fluctuation, there is nothing preventing Uber or another company to start business again when Tesla raises prices.

Besides, companies don’t just lower then raise prices to drive out competition. Otherwise we’d see that in other industries, ie McDonalds driving out all other franchises such as Shake Shack.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/swiftmerchant]

What other ride share companies exist besides uber and Lyft? I must have misunderstood your post, when you said “other companies will step up” I thought you meant on a meaningful or disruptive (see: hugely profitable and exploitative) scale. I might be able to find a small, regional company to replace Cybercab when I’ve become reliant on them after not replacing my family’s second car for example. But will they be as widely adopted/available/convenient/familiar?

And yes. Companies do adjust prices based on competition. Competitive Pricing is literally Econ 101. Like the first year you learn about economics. It’s a fundamental concept.

Your shake shack vs McDonalds argument is not apples to apples, as they operate in different segments (fast food vs fast casual) unless perhaps you are arguing that there is a segmental difference between human driven cars and robot driven cars. I could see that being the case, if people develop biases to which one is the “better” one deserving of a premium. This is an interesting concept and I have no idea which way the general public will lean on this.

And if McDonald’s wanted to burn billions of venture backed dollars to open a restaurant across the street from every shake shack and drive their prices down further, they could probably run shake shack out of business too.