A few thoughts and predictions after Tesla's first day of robotaxi operations: 1) It's hilarious watching the clown show that is $TSLAQ and others that try to present themselves as "unbiased" that CLEARLY have an anti-Tesla bias take one clip from Rob's video and parade it to mean the day was a failure. This could not be further from the truth, overall the day was a major success 2) The safety monitors were not doing anything. They could have been out of the car entirely and the day likely would have looked exactly the same 3) The overwhelming sentiment is that Tesla's robotaxis are already smoother than Waymo's on day one. Waymo still does some things better - but it's mostly app operation and that will be an easy fix for Tesla 4) While $4.20 obviously won't be the real cost of Tesla's rides for long, it will be EASY for Tesla to undercut Waymo. This is still the most overlooked thing about this entire conversation - Tesla's cost structure for its robotaxis. It's already 4-5x lower now, and that will improve significantly with the Cybercab next year. Don't forget, Waymo isn't making a profit yet, and to date it's been WITHOUT Tesla competing in its markets 5) Then when you layer in Tesla's software advantage and vertical integration - the ability to have a customers' apps and playlists preloaded (and eventually Grok) - the customer experience will be superior and at a better price point Now for some predictions: 1) Tesla will remove the safety monitors in the cars sometime in August 2) Waymo plans to have 3,500 cars in its fleet by the end of 2026. Tesla will surpass this number in Q2 '26 (and there's a good chance it happens sooner). It may feel like a slow ramp for Tesla fans throughout 2025 compared to what we know the tech is capable of (safety first) but the parabolic expansion will happen sometime in 2026. When it does, Tesla will quickly have orders of magnitude more robotaxis in operation than Waymo 3) Tesla will have a larger geofenced area than Waymo in Austin by Q4 of this year 4) By the end of 2026, it will no longer even be up for debate that Tesla has the superior approach to autonomy $TSLA Photo cred: @DominicBRNKMN
