Steering clear of the hype in the robotaxi race
For years, Tesla has been promising us a bespoke car with no steering wheel and no pedals. Frankly, I stopped holding my breath around 2019. We have grown completely ossified to grand Silicon Valley timelines. But suddenly, the Cybercab seems to be creeping out of the vapourware graveyard and into reality.
Tesla shares recently rallied on fresh signals that this pedal-free contraption might actually see a commercial launch. It is an incredibly bold move. A car with no manual override only makes sense if you are utterly convinced your artificial intelligence will not steer a passenger into a canal.
Confidence is cheap, but hardware is brutally expensive.
Tesla is betting the house on cameras and raw processing power. It is a vertically integrated dream. If they pull it off, the margins could be staggering. But if we are talking about commercial reality, we have to talk about the competition.