Whole Mars Catalog's $TSLA thesis: Tesla bets on self-driving future

Whole Mars Catalog

Tesla & Autonomous-Driving Publisher

11 Nov, 15:42Latest

Tesla's focus on autonomous vehicles looks justified because most transport is likely to become self-driving. Elon Musk predicted under 5% of miles would be manually driven, perhaps under 1%; that seems probably right, and he will likely be vindicated despite anger over Cybertruck's cancellation. Self-Driving is approved in Finland; operation in 11 EU countries makes delaying EU-wide approval harder to justify. Tesla also has more autonomous vehicles registered in Texas than Waymo. x.com x.com x.com x.com

TSLA

7 Nov, 23:32

Tesla's purpose-built autonomous vehicles can lower cost per mile by matching each trip to a shared vehicle designed for that use. Cybercab is impossible for an all-purpose car to compete with on the 80% of miles traveled alone or with one other person; for occasional group trips, riders could summon a Robovan. Tesla's vertically integrated stack should help it design these formats as autonomy eventually reaches other vehicle types. x.com x.com

TSLA

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Elon Musk

10 Nov, 09:44

CEO of Tesla, Founder & CEO of SpaceX

Cybercab will do a majority of all passenger miles in any jurisdiction where it is not prohibited by law. x.com

AlvaSupportsMusk forecasts Cybercab taking a majority of all passenger miles wherever legally permitted, reinforcing his expectation of a broad market for Tesla's specialized two-seat format.

Lyn Alden

10 Nov, 01:57

Investment Strategist, Author of Broken Money

[Replying to Nic Cruz Patane: "This is why Tesla is going all-in on Cybercab"] I’ll fade 500k mile standard lifetimes anytime soon. Would require battery and other overhauls multiple times. x.com

AlvaChallengesAlden argues that 500,000-mile lifetimes would require multiple battery and other overhauls, challenging Cybercab cost-per-mile savings from long service life.

Elon Musk

9 Nov, 07:20

CEO of Tesla, Founder & CEO of SpaceX

This is not a case of Cybertruck being unprofitable, as has been misreported by legacy media, but rather that the opportunity cost of the complexity of Cybertruck is vastly outweighed by the value of incremental Cybercab production. x.com

AlvaSupportsMusk argues that incremental Cybercab production is worth more than retaining Cybertruck's manufacturing complexity, supporting Tesla's allocation of factory capacity to its purpose-built autonomous format.

Elon Musk

6 Nov, 06:30

CEO of Tesla, Founder & CEO of SpaceX

Tesla will be winding down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas around the middle of next year to make room for increased Cybercab production x.com

AlvaSupportsThis supports the rollout’s scaling prospects: Tesla plans to free Texas factory capacity for increased Cybercab production around mid-next year.

Reuters

5 Nov, 21:05

Global News Agency

Lyft plans to "significantly grow" its Waymo robotaxi fleet in Nashville by year-end, the company said on Thursday ... Lyft opened an 80,000-square-foot depot in the city in October. tradingview.com

AlvaChallengesLyft's new Nashville depot and planned Waymo fleet expansion give a rival more infrastructure to support rollout, challenging Tesla's claimed scaling advantage from charging deployment.

Uber Technologies, Inc.

4 Nov, 13:00

Ride-Hailing and Delivery Platform

And in fact, what you're seeing on the ground today is exactly that, both for Waymo and Tesla, their trips per vehicle, per day in the new markets that they have launched this year is in the low teens versus high-20s that we are seeing on our network in these hybrid markets.

AlvaChallengesThe reported low-teens trips per vehicle per day for Tesla in new markets weakens the case that its fleet is already scaling into high ride volume; the comparison is with Uber's hybrid markets.

The Transcript

4 Nov, 00:00

Weekly Earnings-Call Quotes Newsletter

Alphabet CEO on Waymo: "We have now driven 300M+ fully autonomous miles. Waymo now operates in 15 major U.S. cities, and just recently opened up service to the public in San Antonio, San Diego, and Tampa with planned expansions into Canada, Germany, Singapore, and Spain" x.com

AlvaChallengesWaymo's public launch in San Antonio expands its operating presence in Texas, raising the bar for Tesla's registered-fleet catch-up to translate into comparable service.

Reuters

22 Oct, 01:34

Global News Agency

"We're trying to get Cybercabs to customers by the end of this year, 2026," he said. "As we start small this year, and we learn ... about delivery and ownership and fleet management of autonomous vehicles in customer hands, we'll continue to scale that."...The vehicle, however, will mainly be Tesla owned and used for its ride-hailing service, Musk said. tradingview.com

AlvaMixedMoravy's customer-delivery plan advances the owner-network path, while Musk's expectation that Cybercabs will mainly be Tesla-owned points to a higher owned-fleet share than the base case's 10% mix.

Earnings Whispers

21 Oct, 23:16

Financial research and data service, Publisher of earnings expectations, investor sentiment, guidance, and research

More than 75% of North American deliveries signed up for paid FSD at delivery; paid customers have reached 1.7 million...people are walking into showrooms asking for an “FSD drive,” not a Model 3, Model Y, or Cybertruck. x.com

AlvaSupportsThe reported 1.7 million paid FSD customers strengthens the supervised-subscription income path underlying the thesis's bear case.

Dow Jones

21 Oct, 22:22

Real-Time Financial News Wire

Tesla is upping its spending to support the scaling of newer products, including robotaxis and Optimus robots. The company raised its capital expenditure outlook for the current year to $20 billion, Finance Chief Vaibhav Taneja says on a call with analysts. ... Over the next few years, CapEx will go toward expanding its robotaxi fleet, increasing production capacity for Optimus, installing new manufacturing space for solar energy, buying additional computing infrastructure and building a semiconductor fab, Taneja says. tradingview.com

AlvaSupportsTaneja's reported plan to fund robotaxi fleet expansion supports the network-scaling assumption behind the 2035 revenue and contribution case.

First Squawk

21 Oct, 22:01

Financial Audio News Service

TESLA EXEC SAYS THE COMPANY IS LAUNCHING CYBERCABS IN DALLAS NEXT MONTH AND IS TRYING TO GET CYBERCABS TO CUSTOMERS BY THE END OF THIS YEAR, ADDING IT EXPECTS AROUND Q2 NEXT YEAR TO TURN ON SOME CUSTOMER CARS TO BE PART OF THE ROBOTAXI FLEET x.com

AlvaSupportsThe reported plan to add some customer cars to the robotaxi fleet around Q2 next year supports the owner-network income path in the base case; the timing remains Tesla's expectation.

Dow Jones

21 Oct, 20:46

Real-Time Financial News Wire

Tesla noted in its third-quarter earnings report that more than 75% of new vehicle deliveries in North America include subscriptions to Full Self-Driving (Supervised), a record number...The company also said that cumulative unsupervised Robotaxi miles grew eightfold quarter over quarter, and that Tesla began rolling out its Cybercab in its Austin Robotaxi fleet in September. tradingview.com

AlvaMixedThe reported 75% FSD subscription rate supports recurring supervised-FSD monetization, while eightfold growth in unsupervised miles and Cybercab deployment support progress toward the thesis's robotaxi network revenue upside.

Reuters

21 Oct, 20:04

Global News Agency

Tesla said earlier this month that its Cybercab fleet in Austin had grown from fewer than 40 vehicles to more than 300 in about a month, with Dallas next. It launched unsupervised robotaxi rides in Miami, Orlando and Tampa in July, after Dallas and Houston in April. tradingview.com

AlvaSupportsThe reported fleet growth and expansion of unsupervised rides support the network-scale assumption behind the thesis's robotaxi revenue and contribution estimates.

Ashok Elluswamy

21 Oct, 18:58

Vice President of AI Software at Tesla

Till date, Robotaxi has driven a total of 3.3 million miles autonomously, and has had zero injuries nor airbag deployments. If the same number of miles were to be manually driven, we should expect roughly 9 injuries to the occupants or other pedestrians and 4 airbag deployments on average. x.com

AlvaSupportsThe reported safety record strengthens the case that autonomous rides can support the modeled network revenue, though the comparison with manual driving is an estimate.

Dow Jones

20 Oct, 10:24

Real-Time Financial News Wire

Tesla launched an AI-trained robo-taxi service in June 2025 in Austin, Texas, but scaling the business has been slow, with a handful of cars in a few cities. Investors would like to know when robo-taxis will be ready to expand and contribute to bottom-line profits. tradingview.com

AlvaChallengesThe report says robotaxi scaling remains slow and the timing of profit contribution is unclear, weakening the thesis's assumption that the network can drive substantial revenue and contribution by 2035.

Walter Bloomberg

19 Oct, 14:31

Financial News Headlines Aggregator, Not Affiliated with Bloomberg

Tesla’s latest SEC filing fuels merger speculation, revealing SpaceX board ties and change-of-control provisions. Kalshi now prices a 67% chance of a merger before February 2027, up from roughly 30% earlier this month. x.com

AlvaSupportsThe reported filing details and rising Kalshi odds support the possibility of a SpaceX combination, but the merger remains speculative and its terms and value to Tesla are unestablished.

Sameer Dholakia

19 Oct, 07:07

Growth Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, Former CEO of SendGrid

Just like Tesla and Elon's got it for his FSD on his cars, I think Waymo has the opportunity to do that for every other OEM on the planet. ... But when you take that same technology and capability and apply it to personal car ownership and then apply it to trucking and then apply it to logistics, Waymo's gonna be an extraordinary, I think, a trillion dollar business. Easy. traffic.libsyn.com

AlvaChallengesDholakia's forecast that Waymo could supply autonomy to other automakers and expand beyond ride-hailing adds competitive risk to Tesla's autonomy upside scenarios; those expansions are not Waymo's near-term focus.

Jason Calacanis

19 Oct, 04:44

Founder and CEO of LAUNCH, Co-host of the All-In Podcast

[Replying to @quasi_mortal: "Does TSLA not eat Uber?"] No ... Tesla is 40% and wins AV gold ... uber and 30 partners gets silver at 35% market share x.com

AlvaMixedA projected 40% AV share strengthens the Robotaxi upside case, while a projected 35% share for Uber and its partners points to substantial competition.

Martin Casado

18 Oct, 20:55

General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz leading its infrastructure practice

Uber I go back and forth on. In the end, I think it really just had a capital and scale effect since the riders ended up not being loyal. And having more of either didn't have a long term notable advantage. x.com

AlvaChallengesThis weakens the case that capital and scale would by themselves create a durable Robotaxi advantage: Casado says Uber's riders were not loyal and that greater capital or scale lacked a notable long-term advantage.

Elon Musk

18 Oct, 05:01

CEO of Tesla, Founder & CEO of SpaceX

The only things that will scale to incredible size (K2 and beyond) economically are super intelligence, robots, solar power and mass to space. ... And, of course, if you have the first two, the rest will follow. x.com

AlvaSupportsThis supports the thesis’s AI and robotics optionality, with Musk arguing that superintelligence and robots could enable much larger-scale economic activity. It is his view, not evidence that Tesla can achieve that scale or capture its value.

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