Tesla should’ve prioritized the next-generation mass-market vehicle ahead of the Cybertruck. As a disclaimer, I’m certainly not saying I’m smarter than Elon Musk, and I most definitely have the advantage of hindsight. I will also make this argument while wearing my Cybertruck t-shirt and awaiting my delivery notification.
There is no doubt that Cybertruck is a vehicle destined for the history books; Tesla achieved what it set out to do, throwing out the old truck design and making the future look like the future. But would the future be a little kinder to Tesla now if it prioritized the next generation model, the less expensive $25,000 car, over the Cybertruck?
This decision is worth a debate among enthusiasts and critics, weighing the potential benefits and drawbacks of focusing on a niche, high-profile product over a vehicle that will allow more people to drive an EV. This editorial delves into the pros and cons of Tesla's approach, examining the implications for the company's future and the broader EV landscape.
Pros of Prioritizing Cybertruck
Market Differentiation and Branding: The Cybertruck, with its bold design and robust features, positions Tesla uniquely in the pickup truck market, a segment that has featured the same design and has been dominated by gas-powered vehicles. This move not only strengthens Tesla's brand as a leader in innovation but also attracts a new demographic of consumers who value distinctiveness and performance.
Cybertruck hits different in Matte Black
High-Profit Margins: Pickup trucks typically offer higher profit margins than smaller cars. By prioritizing the Cybertruck, Tesla can potentially boost its profitability, providing the financial flexibility needed to fund future projects, including developing and manufacturing the next-gen platform. This strategy has been Tesla’s game plan since the Roadster, which financed the development of the Model S, and the pattern repeated.
Early Advantage: Rivian and Ford held the electric pickup truck market alone until Tesla joined the party. Ford has since significantly reduced its production goals for the Lightning, and Rivian is struggling to produce at a rate that would compete with Tesla. Tesla can now set the standard for the sector as the company plans to deliver 250,000 a year and has over a million orders.
Cons of Delaying Next-Gen "Redwood"
Missed Opportunity for Mass Market Penetration: The next-gen that is rumored to have a codename of "Redwood" is anticipated to revolutionize not just vehicle design but, more significantly, the manufacturing process. Delaying its introduction until 2025 could mean missing the opportunity to lead the EV industry towards more accessible and affordable electric vehicles, potentially slowing the global transition to sustainable transportation. Remember, Cybertruck was first introduced in 2019.
Concept of the next generation car
Competition Catching Up: The delay allows competitors, especially those in China like BYD, to consolidate their position in the affordable EV segment. As these companies expand their global footprint, Tesla's first-mover advantage in the mass-market EV space could diminish. BYD has already overtaken Tesla in EV sales thanks largely to its affordable small, compact cars.
Potential Impact on Mission Alignment: Tesla's mission to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy aligns more closely with making EVs accessible to the mass market. Prioritizing a high-end, niche product like the Cybertruck over a potentially revolutionary but more accessible vehicle could be a deviation from this mission.
Strategic Considerations
Innovation in Manufacturing: Elon Musk's emphasis on the revolutionary manufacturing system for Redwood suggests that Tesla is not merely delaying an affordable car but is rethinking the entire production paradigm. This could result in efficiencies and advancements that significantly lower the cost of EVs, making them more accessible on a global scale once the Redwood is introduced.
Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Goals: Tesla's strategy may balance achieving short-term financial and branding objectives with Cybertruck and laying the groundwork for long-term industry transformation with Redwood. The success of the Cybertruck could provide Tesla with the necessary resources and technological insights to support the ambitious goals of the next-gen vehicle.
Global Expansion and Market Readiness: The staggered focus allows Tesla to plan its global expansion strategically, ensuring markets are ready to introduce groundbreaking vehicles. By the time the Redwood is prepared for production, Tesla may have established a more substantial worldwide infrastructure and a more favorable regulatory and consumer environment for its adoption.
Tesla's decision to prioritize the Cybertruck over the next-gen car is a calculated risk that we can consider and debate—the company balanced market opportunities with long-term transformative potential. The success of this approach will depend on Tesla's ability to execute its ambitious plans for the Cybertruck while simultaneously advancing its revolutionary manufacturing processes. Ultimately, Tesla's strategies reflect a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities in leading the global transition to sustainable transportation.
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During Tesla’s Q1 earnings call, Tesla talked about its plan for its upcoming robotaxi network and even showed off a design for the app that would allow customers to request vehicles, much like Uber and Lyft.
While Tesla plans to unveil the robotaxi, officially now called CyberCab this August, a true autonomous taxi is at the very least, a couple of years away. So why is Tesla so eager to show off an app and start offering a Tesla taxi service?
in 2023 Uber had a revenue of 37.28 billion, while Lyft had a much smaller revenue of 4.4 billion. For comparison, Tesla’s revenue last year was 96.77 billion. A taxi service, even one operated by humans can be incredibly lucrative. While Tesla’s ultimate goal may be an automated taxi service, they may be itching to get into the space.
Tesla’s robotaxi was initially supposed to be a taxi service owners would lend their vehicles to. While that’s still the plan, Tesla wants their own vehicles to be a part of the service as well.
Will the Robotaxi Service Start With Tesla Drivers?
Tesla comparing themselves to Airbnb and Uber during their earnings call is intriguing. While Tesla can start producing robotaxis almost whenever they want, it’d likely be smart to wait until autonomy is solved so they’re not limiting themselves to current FSD hardware.
While full autonomy is likely several years away, Tesla seems to be eager to make this push toward a Tesla-owned service. Is Tesla thinking about operating their own Uber-like service? Tesla could be thinking about releasing their future robotaxi app and service in “beta,” letting current Tesla owners operate their own vehicles on the service.
This could result in several benefits for Tesla, not only letting them test their service but also opening up another revenue stream. This would allow Tesla to start operating their robotaxi network as soon as this year, and then slowly replace drivers and owner vehicles with Tesla-owned robotaxis.
Tesla Shows Off Robotaxi App
Tesla showed off it's robotaxi app
At the earnings call, Tesla also showed off a design of their robotaxi app. While it feels early to design an app for a service that could be years away, Tesla appears to be preparing itself for the future and getting customers excited about the prospect.
Tesla showed off five screens of the app, essentially showing how you’d request a robotaxi, how you can view its progress, and control certain features of the vehicle. Through the various screens, you can see most of Tesla’s Autopilot features coming to fruition in terms of autonomy, such as summon, self-driving and eventually Autopark.
Summon - Much like Tesla has re-thought the interior of a car and so many features, you can see the same mechanics applied to the app. To request a vehicle, you simply hold down a summon button and you’ll be presented with an estimate of when a vehicle will arrive.
Set Preferences and Destination - On the second screen, you can see the vehicle’s current location on a 3D map, possibly alluding to future FSD visualizations. It also lets you set your destination and set the climate temperature to your preference.
Trip Progress - While you’re traveling in the vehicle, you’ll be able to view trip information as well as set entertainment options.
Recap
Tesla had a lot to talk about during their earnings call and specifically about the Robotaxi — more information was revealed than ever before.
While there are various things at play to make a service like this come together, we can easily separate them out into separate components.
There’s the robotaxi itself, which Musk recently said would be similar to Tesla’s next-gen vehicle without a steering wheel. However, during this earnings call, he revealed that Tesla will save its new “unboxed” manufacturing process for the robotaxi and use a more traditional method for their next vehicle.
Then there’s FSD itself, while it’s crucial to operating a driverless robotaxi network, it’s not necessary to start a Tesla taxi service.
The last piece is the ride-hailing component itself and how it’s managed, and Tesla was happy to show this off, which makes us believe that it may be closer to reality than many think. While Tesla needs all three of these components to come together to operate a true robotaxi network, they piece them together separately, much like they’ve done with Autopilot. Initially, Tesla only released auto-steer then slowly added on summon, Autopark and city driving.
When we look back at Tesla five years from now, we may very well look back to this earnings call and say this was the pivotal moment when Tesla started transitioning to a services company.
Tesla has invested billions of dollars over the years toward vehicle autonomy. The mission continues as Elon Musk and Tesla now prepare to unveil their ride-hailing product, Robotaxi this August. Or, as Musk called it on Tuesday, Tesla CyberCab.
Early Days
Five years ago, during Tesla’s Autonomy Investor Day in April 2019, Elon Musk said he felt “very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla in the following year [2020]”. At the time, Musk added a bolder claim, predicting that Tesla wouldn’t even make cars with steering wheels or pedals by 2022. While timeliness may not be Musk’s strong suit, he has a track record for getting things done that others were unwilling to try or thought were impossible. Musk later admitted he can be overly optimistic and said “sometimes I am not on time, but I get it done.”
Now, 5 years later, we have the robotaxi unveiling scheduled for August 8th. After the release of FSD v12, it’s clear that we’re much closer to autonomy than we were in 2019, although FSD v12 is still a far cry from full autonomy.
While Tesla still has the robotaxi unveiling scheduled for August, Tesla announced yesterday that it’d be prioritizing a simpler “next-gen” model that could be released by early 2025.
Latest Updates
On the conference call, Musk added that Tesla now has over 300 million miles driven with FSD v12 since it was launched just last month. He added that it's becoming “very clear that the vision-based approach with end-to-end neural networks is the right solution for scalable autonomy”.
Tesla said it has been investing in the hardware and software ecosystems necessary to achieve vehicle autonomy and a ride-hailing service. The company is confident that it can establish a scalable and profitable autonomous driving business by employing a vision-only architecture.
think of it [Tesla] as combination of Airbnb and Uber meaning that there will be some number of cars that Tesla owns itself and operates
Tesla = Uber + AirBnb
Later on, Elon Musk unveiled that the new service will operate and result in a mix between Uber and Airbnb where the Tesla driver decides if and when he wants his Tesla to be used and by whom. Tesla stated:
“We believe the Tesla software experience is best-in-class across all our products, and plan to seamlessly layer ride-hailing into the Tesla App.”
Tesla’s CEO clarified that the owners will be able to add or remove their car from the fleet “whenever they want” adding that it will be up to them to decide if they want to only let the car be used “by friends and family or only by five-star users or by anyone at any time”. The flexible program will, just like Airbnb, allow the owners to take the car out of the market when they want.
The upcoming ride-hailing service will enable users to easily request a Tesla vehicle, control the car's temperature, monitor its real-time location, and adjust the audio system. The only question is when.
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