Uber doubts Tesla's Robotaxi ride-share profitability assumptions

During the annual shareholder event, Elon Musk envisioned a future in which the upcoming Robotaxi ride-share platform of Tesla brings its market value to $5 trillion.

Tesla plans to rent out self-driving Robotaxis that will be more affordable to build, as well as legacy Tesla vehicles, including ones from current owners, as part of the so-called Cybercab service.

Elon Musk is on the record describing it as a mix between Uber and AirBnB on wheels. Existing Tesla owners could rent their cars to the autonomous driving platform for any length of time they desire, for example. According to Elon, this would immediately scale the Cybercab service up into the millions of vehicles, and Tesla will be taking a cut from each ride for running the platform.

Uber's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, however, is not yet convinced that all of those Robotaxi platform assumptions can materialize for Tesla.

Not only would most Tesla owners be reluctant to loan their personal vehicles to strangers, he counters, but they most likely won't do it in peak hours when Tesla's Cybercab rental fleet will be most needed, either.

He also pointed out all the issues that have come for Uber's ride-share service over the years, like people getting sick in their cars, or forgetting items. In short, concluded the Uber CEO, manufacturing a $50,000 car is rather different from running customer service on a ride-share platform with many millions of transactions a day.

Tesla has probably already thought some of this through, though. Besides people's personal vehicles, it will be providing its own cars, as well as Robotaxis, to address the peak hour surge.

Moreover, a recent Tesla app code string dive unearthed references to a Rider Quality Score, similar to Uber's passenger rating system. In addition, there might be a Guest Mode that will allow existing Tesla car owners to introduce various restrictions, from setting speed limits to locking the glove box compartment, to ease the rent-to-stranger anxiety.

Tesla has also patented a self-cleaning vehicle system, which would use "environmental detection through various sensors" to initiate UV disinfection or steaming protocols. This is probably meant for the driverless Robotaxi, though, which Tesla is expected to unveil on October 10.

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