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Around the time Tesla<\/a> CEO Elon Musk was asking investors to reapprove his $56 billion pay package<\/a>, the company also announced<\/a> that it would launch its long-awaited autonomous vehicle rideshare service Robotaxi on August 8. That launch never happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, Tesla ended up postponing its planned Robotaxi unveiling<\/a> until October to build more prototypes. The vision for Robotaxis is current Tesla owners will essentially rent out autonomous self-driving\u00a0 vehicles to ride-share customers, and Musk has claimed<\/a> Tesla owners can earn up to $30,000 per year by doing so. In a LinkedIn<\/a> video<\/a> posted by Rosalie Nathans<\/a>, whose profile says she\u2019s a senior manager for used cars and online sales at Tesla, she hailed a Robotaxi on her phone and could adjust the car\u2019s temperature, music, as well as pick-up and drop-off locations all without someone in the driver seat.<\/p>\n But Tesla\u2019s work on Robotaxis may be for naught\u2014at least according to Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi<\/a>, who said he doubts the electric vehicle giant will have enough taxis to meet peak demand.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cProbably the times at which you\u2019re going to want your Tesla are probably going to be the same times that ridership is going to be at a peak,\u201d Khosrowshahi said during an interview on The Logan Bartlett Show podcast<\/a> released on Friday. \u201cThere are these peaks and valleys in terms of supply and demand.\u201d<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s big vision for the Robotaxi stands on the premise that Tesla owners will want to rent out their vehicles when they\u2019re not in use. That might be nice for folks looking to make a little extra income on their Tesla that\u2019s just sitting in the garage during the day, but the average Tesla owner is considerably well off.\u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, Tesla owners, on average, make about $150,000 per year or more, about twice as much as the median household income in the U.S., according to a study<\/a> by automotive digital marketing agency Hedges & Co.<\/a> Other autonomous vehicle companies are also skeptical about Musk\u2019s rideshare plan for Teslas.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not viable,\u201d Edwin Olson, CEO and co-founder of autonomous driving tech company May Mobility<\/a>, told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cIndividual car owners don\u2019t want to be \u2018landlords\u2019 of their car. Riders are often hard on cars\u2014they treat them poorly, make messes, slam doors\u2014all because the vehicle is not theirs. This could deter owners from participating.\u201d May Mobility<\/a> insists his company\u2019s services aren\u2019t\u00a0 \u201crobotaxi\u201d, but instead partners with businesses and governments to provide specific autonomous driving routes.<\/p>\n Khosrowshahi also isn\u2019t confident about the premise that Tesla owners would willingly rent out their cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s also not clear to me that the average Tesla owner or owner of any other car, is going to want to have that car be ridden in by a complete stranger,\u201d he said during the podcast.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Robotaxis also promise to add another rideshare option for consumers\u2014but they\u2019re going to have to wait even longer for its launch. There\u2019s also a theory that Tesla announced its Robotaxi back in the spring to serve as \u201ca shiny object to distract from Tesla\u2019s declining sales,\u201d according to Bloomberg<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>If true, it worked. During an 11-week stretch starting in April, Tesla added $386 billion in market capitalization, Bloomberg<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, Khosrowshahi is also convinced Robotaxis aren\u2019t ready yet since maintaining a rideshare fleet is a \u201cvery different business\u201d from selling cars, he said on the podcast. In other words, building a $50,000 piece of hardware to make autonomous driving work is completely different from driving more than 30 million transactions every day. And unlike Uber<\/a>, Tesla isn\u2019t equipped to handle the customer service aspect of operating a rideshare company, Khosrowshahi said.<\/p>\n There are a lot of things that can go wrong in a rideshare\u2014like people wanting to pay cash, accidents, and people getting sick or losing items, Khosrowshahi said during the podcast.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had to learn to build out a system that\u2019s able to make everything work for both the rider and the driver,\u201d Khosrowshahi said. \u201cIt\u2019s taken us 15 years. It\u2019s taken us tens of billions of dollars of capital.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Khosrowshahi sees potential in Robotaxi, and doesn\u2019t think of it as a \u201czero-sum game.\u201d In fact, he said during the podcast \u201chopefully Tesla will be one of [Uber\u2019s partners]\u201d one day.\u00a0<\/p>\n Olson also sees the idea of a Robotaxi as more effective if Tesla were to instead dedicate a fleet of autonomous vehicles to the platform. Fleets can be optimized for specific purposes, offer streamlined services\u2014and they\u2019re just easier to manage, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis approach is likely to result in a better service to consumers than \u2018some random guy\u2019s Tesla showing up,\u2019\u201d Olson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n CEO Daily provides key context for the news leaders need to know from across the world of business. Every weekday morning, more than 125,000 readers trust CEO Daily for insights about\u2013and from inside\u2013the C-suite. Subscribe Now<\/a>.<\/div>\n\nAbout Tesla\u2019s Robotaxi plan<\/h2>\n
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