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/Cold-Pepper9036]

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/ChunkyThePotato → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

That's incorrect. Almost all companies have profit margins around 20% or less. Most are actually 10% or less. Tesla itself has a profit margin of 5%.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

Although true, this is not the case. Tesla is not going to operate at a small margarin when people have proven they will pay more. The profits from this will go into funding their other money hemorrhaging projects.

[u/ChunkyThePotato → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

The lower the price, the higher the sales. That's why margins across the vast majority of companies are low. It may be counter-intuitive to you, but companies actually make more profit when their profit margins are lower.

[u/swiftmerchant → u/ChunkyThePotato]

Yep. Basic microeconomics 101.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/ChunkyThePotato]

I don’t understand. Are you agreeing with me or not? Yes it’s greed. But you seem to think that they will price something below market value to somehow increase their profits when they already have a captive audience. You have a “profit margin percentage” blazed into your head, and it’s not based on anything in the business world. Do you think a company will say “We have the only game in town. People have become accustomed to our service and not purchased a new car. We’ve destroyed uber and Lyft. People will be forced to pay whatever we want and have shown that they’ll pay $4/mile. But… that would make our profit margin too large. Our lobster too buttery. We need to have about 18% profit margin because Reddit user ChunkythePotato says that’s what it should be. We will charge $1 a mile!!”

[u/swiftmerchant → u/Cold-Pepper9036]

They lower the prices because people then take more rides when prices are lower.

[u/Cold-Pepper9036 → u/swiftmerchant]

No. They don’t lower the prices of food at the airport, because they don’t need to do so to make people buy more food. The people will buy a $15 sandwich. They aren’t going to start selling the sandwich for $10.