#CybercabRevealLetdown

Here's how I think Tesla's Robotaxi unveil will go on 8/8/2024. One of the things to keep in mind regarding autonomy is that today's cars are not built from the ground up to be self-driving vehicles. In a regular car, the form factor is optimized to give the driver all the tools necessary to operate the vehicle safely. This means that absolutely everything in the car - including the seats themselves - are optimized for safety of the driver and passengers. The rest of the car becomes storage space for the individual driving the vehicle - be it either for humans, luggage, or whatever else. Looking forward to Tesla's unveil on 8/8, I believe the company will unveil their vision for what a transportation system looks like in an age where no steering wheel or pedals are required to get from Point A to Point B. By default, this will remove the driver which does two things: A) Dramatically change the form factor of a "car". B) Dramatically increase safety due to the removal of the most dangerous part of a car - the driver. Now, if we start from this blank slate, it becomes clear that all preconceived notions we all have about what a car should be, or what it should look like, are turned upside down. If you no longer need a driver, you no longer need about 1/5th of a car's interior that is purely focused around the operation of the car. This includes the orientation of the driver seat. If you no longer have to drive, do you need to look out of the front windshield? Also, if you no longer have to drive, what will you do instead? Get work done? Watch movies? Hang out with friends? Sleep? Have a party? Doom scroll on X? Let me ask a quick question - do you use the same space and/or set up to get work done vs having a cocktail? What about sleeping vs hanging out with friends? It quickly becomes obvious that the use cases for a self-driving vehicle to get us from Point A to Point B become plentiful very quickly. In essence, the interior of a Robotaxi becomes a blank slate for multiple use cases. It is no different than having a room on wheels in which you get to decide what you want the room to look like. What this means is that the interior set up of a Robotaxi is likely to change depending on the use case. A "commuter" Robotaxi will likely be optimized for maximum comfort while getting work done while offering a very low cost per mile. A "party" Robotaxi will be optimized for maximum fun while having a good time with a group of people on the way to the bar - maybe while singing karaoke. A "sleeper" Robotaxi will be optimized for sleeping. Etcetera, Etcetera. However, as this technology matures, and more and more use cases start to appear as Robotaxis become more and more safe and comfortable, the number of interior configurations will likely increase. Think of the airline model. There are two primary manufacturers in the US - Boeing and Airbus. Neither of these two companies run their own fleet of planes. Instead, they make the "shell", which has all the necessary components to fly the plane, and they offload the customization of the interior space to airline providers like United, Delta, Southwest, etc. Each one of these providers customize the interior of the plane to offer a different value proposition for their customers. Additional leg room, dirt cheap prices, maximum comfort, really rough landings, etc. I believe the self-driving space will go down the same exact path. I believe that on 8/8, Tesla will unveil their vision of what will be a Robotaxi "shell" that is infinitely customizable in the interior by fleet providers that choose to purchase it. Now, if you reference the snip that I attached to this post from Tesla's Master Plan Part 2, you can see that the company will operate its own fleet of cars in places where there's not enough Robotaxis. However, this statement implies that Tesla will, by default, not offer a Robotaxi that they've outfitted themselves in an area where there are enough running around. It could be as simple as making their current line-up of cars available for simple Point A to Point B transport in the "traditional" car set up - no different than an Uber without a driver. Or a super-simple version of the Robotaxi that is only seats - and that's it. I do not think Tesla will want to get into the game of offering all the different use cases for a Robotaxi. I believe this adds complexity to their business that they do not want. Because of how early this technology is, the market will likely evolve quite quickly in what they want from the "interior" of a Robotaxi, which means that Tesla would have to spend a ton of resources figuring out the best way to cater to the customer base over time. This is not Tesla's core expertise in my opinion. Tesla excels at making ridiculously well-engineered manufacturing systems for large-scale products. However, the interior of a Robotaxi is not this. It's closer to having tens or hundreds of interior designers that try to figure out what customers will want from a room on wheels. I believe it's in Tesla's best interest to create an eco-system - very similar to Apple's App Store - where they offer the "bones" to build solutions for customers and let developers figure out what the "bones" will be used for. In this case, the "bones" are the iPhones, and the solutions are the apps. Robotaxi will be no different in my opinion. The "bones" will be the vehicle itself with all critical components to get the thing to drive itself from Point A to Point B, and solutions will be fleet providers, no different than an airline like Delta or United, that figure out what they can come up with that people will want - at the right price. And like the iPhone, Tesla will only allow the operation of said Robotaxis on their proprietary app, in which they'll take a % of each mile driven. The fleet providers figure out what solution they want to put on the network, at the right price, and Tesla takes a cut. Just like the App Store for Apple. Anyway - that's my idea. I highly doubt @elonmusk will spill any beans between now and then, but you never know. What do you think?