Ark Invest, arguably Tesla’s biggest bull with a $2,000 price target on the TSLA stock, put together a weighted average prediction for when Tesla would launch its robotaxi service.
Recently, Tesla has made it clear that it is virtually betting the house on self-driving.
CEO Elon Musk even went as far as to say that Tesla solving self-driving is the difference between Tesla being worth trillions or “basically nothing.”
As we have previously reported, Musk believes that not many are seeing the value in Tesla eventually pushing self-driving capability to its fleet of millions of vehicles through over-the-air software updates. However, we think he might be confusing people not understanding the value with people having serious doubts about Tesla being able to do it in the first place.
One group that does believe it is Ark Invest, an investment firm that has long held one of the highest price targets on Tesla’s stock.
The firm, which owns over $1 billion worth of Tesla shares, has a $2,000 price target on the stock, which represents a massive upside over the current $160 price.
But a majority of that upside is based on Tesla delivering its long-held promise of releasing its robotaxi service to its existing fleet.
In a recent update to its Tesla model, Ark says that it is confident Tesla will soon launch its robotaxi service and even puts a prediction that it should happen in late 2024:
ARK has grown increasingly confident that Tesla will launch a robotaxi service soon. Our updated Monte Carlo model includes a range of launch dates, with late 2024 as the weighted average of all cases, as shown below.
That’s based on a simulation of the commercialization of Tesla’s robotaxi service:
Musk himself said just last week that he expects Tesla to achieve “full autonomy” this year, but as we reported, it’s not clear what he means by “full autonomy.”
Ark’s definition is clearer. They are talking about Tesla releasing a software update making its whole fleet of millions of cars produced since 2016 fully self-driving and offering robotaxi services through a new Uber-like app.
Electrek’s Take
That would indeed be a game changer that would create a lot of value for Tesla, and the end of 2024 still leaves more than a year to achieve it.
But as an FSD beta tester, I have difficulties imagining Tesla going from the current FSD beta to a robotaxi service only through software updates.
It’s not impossible, but I find it hard to believe. Although, the “start of commercialization” would only mean that – the start. I can see Tesla achieving some level of self-driving capacity that could enable robotaxi services in some geofenced areas by then, but that isn’t likely to be pushed to millions of vehicles like Musk has promised for years.
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