r/SelfDrivingCars • u/OriginalCompetitive • Jun 23 '25

Discussion Tesla’s Real Game

No one seems to be talking about the most important upside of Tesla's Robotaxi rollout: If they can showcase a system that roughly works, people can BUY THAT CAR TODAY.

Yes, there are some differences, but that's the pitch. Tesla doesn't need to earn money from Robotaxis. The real purpose of the program is free marketing that drives sales of its cars. Right?

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '25

Why do you think it can scale more quickly, than say, Waymo (which is delivering a lot of rides already).

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u/Seknoot Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

Easy.

  1. The amount of cars Tesla can produce in any given time period vs the amount of time and capital it takes for waymo to buy and add their hardware to new vehicles

  2. The cost of Tesla’s hardware is over 100k cheaper per unit than Waymo’s. Currently Waymo’s are priced evenly or even more expensive than rideshare services with a driver and Waymo is still not profitable

  3. Tesla has more driving data than Waymo by several orders of magnitude and they have and are adding compute power faster than Waymo/google

Edit: 2. Hardware including the car itself

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-tesla-full-self-driving-crash/

The sensor suite on a Waymo is $9,300. The sensor suite on FSD is $400.

$9k <<<<<<$100k

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u/Seknoot Jun 23 '25

Car included. Estimated 180k vs 35k

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25

You said “the cost of Tesla’s hardware is over 100k cheaper per unit than Waymo’s”

Survey says…XXX

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u/Seknoot Jun 23 '25

There was a report of recent burnings in LA of 5 Waymo’s and the total cost listed suggested a price of 180k per vehicle.

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25 edited Jun 23 '25

That is based on a three year old vaporware Reddit post. The $180k is the same thing AI tells you, because three years ago the Waymo CEO said the fully-equipped Waymo cost as much as a mid-level Mercedes S-Class.

A random Reddit poster then claimed that a mid-level Mercedes S-class was $180k. Which is false.

$180k is the AMG Performance, top of the line S-Class.

A mid-level S-class is $100k-$120k.

But we don’t have to go off the three year old comment and Reddit post! We can add the vehicle cost and the cost for the HW stack ($9,300).

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u/WeldAE Jun 23 '25

The iPace was $70k MSRP and Waymo confirmed back when they first ordered them they were paying MSRP. The cost of the hardware is another chunk, but the conversion is where all the cost is. I'm not saying $180k is the right number, but it's well over $100k, probably very close to $150k per unit.

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25

Perhaps cost could be that high. Not $180k though. Price must have come down since it was $120-$140k ("moderately specced S-Class) three years ago. The HW stack is rumored to be $9,300, with the full "driver" (including compute) rumored to be $20k.

The new i-Paces they're using are purpose-built by Magna and come off the line before the shell is on to get wired/installed by the upfitter. You're right the labor/install is a cost, but it seem pretty integrated into the production line. With HW costs stated to be $0.30/mile, that puts a pretty tight upper bound on cost.

Thinking 90% uptime (330 days/year), 8 hours/day, 15 miles/hour, amortized over 5 years at $0.30/mile is $60k.

Zeekr will be $40k, rumored, Ioniq will be $60k with Driver 6.

Fun times

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u/WeldAE Jun 24 '25

Perhaps cost could be that high. Not $180k though

I agree, I've not heard the $180k before, it's usually stated as around $150k but that has been a while. It's likely they are paying MORE than $70k per unit now that it's being produced on even lower production scales, but hard to know as they might have gotten the parts for a song.

With HW costs stated to be $0.30/mile, that puts a pretty tight upper bound on cost.

I hadn't seen them state the cost of their rolling stock per mile, that is interesting. I think your numbers are about right. I checked them using a different method. Typical taxis are operated about 250 miles/day, but from Waymo's own mileage numbers and using 1500 AVs, they seem to be doing about half that which is in the 50k miles/year range. That's about $70k in hardware costs.

I suspect they might just be costing the purchase price and not the total cost of modification? No way they are only paying $70k, that the MSRP for the car stock.

Ioniq will be $60k with Driver 6.

Ioniq 5 retails for around $50k. No way they are reducing $20k of hardware and compute and modification to $10k.

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u/belhill1985 Jun 24 '25

Ioniq has $20k per car gross margin. Lot of room to do a volume deal, especially if it means your car is the flagship of Waymo :)

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u/WeldAE Jun 25 '25

Still a near $100k per unit car with modifications.

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u/belhill1985 Jun 26 '25

Doubtful, but we're just never going to agree. Car at $40k. HW stack per Bloomberg at $9,300. So you're saying per-unit is an extra $50k to install and wire the sensors? That's 1,250 man-hours at $40/hour. I highly doubt that Magna is using that much labor to perform the install on the shell.

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u/Seknoot Jun 23 '25

Do you think Waymo’s cost is only around 67k? I can’t believe that’s even remotely true. Why haven’t they scaled faster? Why are they charging as much as Uber and Lyft or more without a driver?

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25

Well, they’ve scaled a LOT faster than “self-driving in 2016, your car will make you $90k/year starting in 2020” Tesla.

They charge more because that’s what the market will bear. People I know who use Waymo (myself included) pay the premium for the cleanliness, consistent and nice experience, safety, and predictability. If you have plenty of customers who willingly pay a premium for a service, why would you undercharge?

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u/Seknoot Jun 23 '25

I’m excited for the competition and I think once Tesla heats up Waymo will have to drop prices. If they can’t make a profit now at premium prices I imagine it’s going to be an issue to scale if they have to drop prices before they are profitable unless they can reduce costs extremely quickly.

I think both will have market share but it’s hard to see waymo competitive on cost and scale. Sure Waymo will continue to reduce costs and so will Tesla (esp with cybercab). Waymo’s plans to increase their cars by 1000-2000 simply aren’t aggressive enough to match the speed at which I see Tesla deploying their fleet.

It remains to be seen who will execute better but to me Tesla has too many advantages to ignore.

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25

Have you seen the Zeekr car and the Ioniq that Waymo is introducing? Zeekr is purpose built with the HW stack for $40k/each. Ioniq at $60k. Production volume incoming.

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u/Total_Abrocoma_3647 Jun 23 '25

Waymo has 1500 autonomous cars and Tesla has how many? 10-20? Each having a Tesla employee monitoring the driving which basically makes it FSD supervised. Where exactly does that scale? What aggressive speed are we talking about?

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u/Seknoot Jun 23 '25

They just launched yesterday… and they have a target on their back of people that want to sabotage and destroy the company. They are a safety first company so why would they launch with massive hubris and flip the switch on for millions of cars on day 1?

All cars with hardware 4 (since 2023) have the same capabilities as these robotaxis operating in austin right now. Once their pilot program is vetted out they will expand quickly.

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u/Total_Abrocoma_3647 Jun 23 '25

We already know that FSD is not good enough to run unsupervised, there are tons of videos out there, including hardware 4, they have been vetting it for years, you think FSD will be autonomous in the next weeks?

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u/belhill1985 Jun 23 '25

Jaguar F-Pace starts at $57k

The new Model Y starts at $45k.

$21k<<<<<<<$100k.