In fact, there has been a long-standing debate about whether Tesla is a car company or a technology company, and Musk responded a long time ago, “We created a chip design team from scratch for Tesla’s fully automatic driverless computer, but car companies don’t do this.”
According to previous data, although electric vehicle sales still account for 84% of Tesla’s revenue, industry insiders predict that driven by artificial intelligence business, electric vehicle sales may not be the company’s main source of income in the near future. Last year, Ark Investment mentioned in an evaluation report that Tesla’s future automatic robot taxi business line will be a key driving factor, contributing 67% of the expected enterprise value and 64% of the expected EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in 2027.
ADVERTISEMENT
At the same time, Tesla plans to spend about $10 billion on AI-related expenses this year alone. In terms of market value, Tesla’s total market value is as high as $810.572 billion, while Toyota, the world’s number one auto sales company, has a total market value of only about $230 billion. These are not what a pure car manufacturing company should do, so many analysts prefer to compare Tesla with technology giants such as Apple and Amazon, so Tesla is more like a technology complex.
Now it’s not hard to understand why Musk thinks a regular $25,000 car is meaningless, but let’s take a look at the Cybercab Robotaxi project.
In layman’s terms, this is actually a driverless taxi. Users can summon a nearby Cybercab through a mobile phone app to pick them up, which is a bit like “Carrot Run”. The biggest feature of Cybercab is that it can be charged wirelessly. The car is not equipped with a traditional steering wheel and pedals, only a large central control screen is retained, and there are only two seats. The cost of the new car is estimated to be less than US$30,000, which can reduce the operating cost of driverless taxis. At the same time, it will be equipped with a complete FSD (fully automatic driving) and will be mass-produced as early as the end of 2026.
It can not only control costs but also have the ability of autonomous driving, which can improve travel convenience and rewrite the future mode of urban travel. Obviously, such a product is more in line with the positioning of Tesla Technology Company.
In conclusion:
In many science fiction movies, we can always see human imaginations about future travel methods and intelligent robots. Compared with building a cheap commuter car, turning these imaginations into reality may be more in line with Tesla’s positioning in the long run. Of course, as Jia Yueting said, under today’s market demand, “if Tesla doesn’t do it, someone else must do it”, so who do you think will take over Tesla and build an ordinary $25,000 car?
ADVERTISEMENT
