ARK Investment Management has expressed optimism regarding Tesla's potential in the autonomous vehicle space, particularly following their WeRobot event. The firm believes Tesla (TSLA, Financial) holds a notable advantage over competitors like Waymo due to its extensive data lake gathered from customer vehicles, which enhances its manufacturing and data capabilities.
While Tesla may not be the first to offer an autonomous driving platform, ARK predicts it could be the first to achieve scalable deployment. According to Tasha Keeney, ARK's Director of Investment Analysis, Tesla's self-developed Hardware 3 and 4 chips allow vehicles to become fully autonomous through over-the-air software updates, making the company well-positioned to deploy a widespread robotaxi network by 2025 or 2026.
A highlight of the event was Tesla CEO Elon Musk's statement that the company may offer autonomous taxi services at a cost as low as $0.30 to $0.40 per mile. Keeney emphasizes that this cost is significantly less than the average cost per mile for western ride-hailing services, which is approximately $2.40, and for privately-owned vehicles, which average around $0.70 per mile. Lowering costs could make Tesla's robotaxi platform more competitive and attract a larger user base.
ARK's research indicates that Tesla is targeting a global market valued at over $10 trillion, much larger than those of Uber or Didi.
