Cybercab

On Thursday Tesla will unveil its robotaxi product at an event in Los Angeles. The new vehicle will be called a Cybercab. It will be able to drive itself and be summoned on a Tesla ride-hailing platform. The design might look like the mock-up in the picture here.

It will be interesting to see what technology these cars have on board. They won't have steering wheels or pedals, for starters. They will have lots of cameras and web-connected computing power, but probably won't have radar or lidar systems like the fully electric Jaguar I-PACE cars that Waymo uses. Those cost up to $200 000 each - too expensive for a mass market taxi Tesla has in mind.

Building a large fleet of robotaxis that are available everywhere will be massively capital intensive. So, Tesla hopes to draw in individual car owners who want to make money by putting theirs on the ride-hailing network.

I suspect that Tesla will have to do a deal with Uber. The latter has over 150 million customers around the world, using it at least once a month for rides and food delivery. They've been building that base for 14 years and handled $34 billion in gross bookings in the US last year.

We have plenty of skin in this game. Almost all Vestact clients own Google, the parent of Waymo. About half of our clients own Tesla, and a much smaller group owns Uber. We'll be watching closely on Thursday.