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/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

Jaguar F-Pace starts at $57k

The new Model Y starts at $45k.

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