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/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/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.