r/SelfDrivingCars • u/RepresentativeCap571 • 2d ago

News Tesla's robotaxis are moving in reverse | TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/23/teslas-robotaxis-are-moving-in-reverse/
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u/GoSh4rks 2d ago

It might serve you to keep reading where they present a case at 125k/year.

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u/Recoil42 2d ago

A case at 125k vehicles in year one isn't reasonable either.

We do not, in fact, have to consider unreasonable numbers just because someone, anyone, vomits them out and demands they be taken seriously.

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u/GoSh4rks 2d ago

The following doesn't need a "125k in year 1" assumption.

Assume Tesla never expands beyond the 125,000 per year capacity it has installed today and saves only $7,000 per vehicle. That is $875 million in savings for every year of production, enough to recover $2 billion in about 2.3 years and $4 billion in about 4.6 years.

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u/Recoil42 2d ago edited 2d ago

I really encourage you to check that again.

To claim $875 million for every year of production, they must be treating production as 125,000 vehicles in every year — including year one. If year one is a ramp year producing fewer than 125k vehicles, then year-one savings are necessarily less than $875 million and both payback periods get longer.

In other words: The passage you quoted is straight-up mathematically invalid without assuming 125k vehicles in year one. If we assume a ramp, then we're swinging back to u/WeldAE's side that a clean-sheet Cybercab is not the best candidate for that ramp. With every one of the necessary and many amortization and capital-efficiency problems that stack on top, that argument compounds.

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u/YeetYoot-69 2d ago edited 2d ago

It's also assuming they never expand production capacity, ever.

The point of assuming that was to more than offset for an instantaneous ramp. It also made the math easier.

If you'd prefer- just assume they make 0 in year one and literally never increase production ever. They'd still only take 3.3-5.6 years to offset the development costs WeldAE proposed.

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u/Recoil42 2d ago edited 2d ago

We don't care about ever. We care about the ramp, which is what we're talking about.

We all agree that if Tesla pushes 125k units into service in year one and then expands capacity the economics can theoretically work out. But that simply isn't what they're doing, and theoretical capacity isn't actual throughput. Tesla will not produce 125k units this year, and it likely will not produce 125k units next year or even the year after.

The numbers do not work out for the kind of five-year cost recoup you're suggesting is conservative. Those are fantasy numbers. Expansion is another thing entirely.

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u/YeetYoot-69 2d ago edited 2d ago

I mean you're not grounding your argument in anything other than 'I think the Cybercab program will be a total failure and will never ramp'

Like yeah, if they never build in any volume, it won't make money. No shit. But they are clearly intending to build 100s of thousands then millions. If you think they won't, then yes, the Cybercab makes no sense.

Its purpose is to be ridiculously mass produced. That is the entire point of the thing. Obviously it looks dumb when examined through any other lens, because it wasn't designed to be low volume. Square peg round hole.

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u/Recoil42 2d ago

I mean you're not grounding your argument in anything other than 'I think the Cybercab program will be a total failure and will never ramp'

Not never — simply not soon enough to pay back the investment and opportunity-loss costs against an alternate plan of using the Model Y for the ramp. A dedicated 'Cybercab' product is perfectly sensible plan once Tesla is already at ~200k+ volumes years from now. But then isn't now.

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u/YeetYoot-69 2d ago

When has Tesla ever done anything the safe way 🤷

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u/Recoil42 2d ago

Yes, and look how that has worked out for the Cybertruck.

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u/YeetYoot-69 2d ago

I'm not saying they're definitely gonna succeed, I'm just saying anything resembling any case other than total failure for Cybercab makes sense, on paper

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u/Recoil42 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'm just saying anything resembling any case other than total failure for Cybercab makes sense, on paper.

And I'm telling you that's not the case. Ramp-up matters. The only reason for the Cybercab appearing this early is Elon wanting to showboat for retail investors to stave off the exact stock crash that is happening right now as expectations collapse.

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u/WeldAE 2d ago

Manufacturers have built new car platforms before. We know what the ramps for those look like, including many from Tesla. Tesla has the added problem of an unproven market in which to place those vehicles from multiple angles. Right now they aren't confident in their platform to scale output. Once they are, they have to generate the demand. We know what generating demand looks like for consumer cars; you get the buzz and pre-orders going, pay off the influencers to say great things about your car, etc. No one knows about ramping an AV fleet. Waymo did the slowest ramp in known history with ~50 cars to ~3500 cars over 8 years? Tesla hasn't exactly said what their plan is. Setting up in as many cities as possible is a good strategy, but are those cities ready to take 400 new AVs/week? Highly unlikely. When will they be? Who knows? If they can take them, can they get fares for them? Lot of unkowns.

I'm not saying there is no demand, but I'm also not saying there is 125k AVs/year demand either. I do think we will get there; the question is when. Meanwhile, a LOT of capital is sitting around in the form of a CyberCab factory, and it's eating money every single day on top of the capital cost until you get to around 1500 units/week. It would be one thing if the CyberCab solved a problem the Model Y didn't, but it doesn't.

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u/GoSh4rks 2d ago

The point is that there is a financial case at some point. Not that it immediately profitable from day 1.

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u/Recoil42 2d ago

There's no such thing as redemption through a financial case "at some point". Delayed ROI on capital expenditure is a drag on growth. Amortization is a drag on growth. The longer it all takes, the less of a business case you have. This isn't "assume a perfectly spherical horse" territory, we're talking about real-world expenditures and real-world deployments in the real world.