One of the most thrilling scenes in Minority Report is John Anderton’s (Tom Cruise) escape, jumping on the moving autonomous cars circulating on the futuristic highway of a Washington set in 2054. Autonomous driving has been a recurring element in science fiction: back in 1953, Isaac Asimov wrote Sally, a story in which there are scrapyards for retired autonomous cars and manually driven vehicles have been banned. However, no science fiction author could predict the emergence of an entrepreneur like Elon Musk, nor his plans for the company’s autonomous cars: Tesla’s CEO wants these vehicles to be rented by the company or their own owners to be used by other users.
Elon Musk’s idea is for his fleet of autonomous cars to function as a combination between Airbnb and Uber. This was indicated last week during the conference call with investors on the occasion of the publication of the results for the first quarter of 2024. Musk explained that Tesla will operate the fleet of autonomous cars, some of which will be owned by end users. Tesla will allow renting out its autonomous vehicles, including those owned by end users when not in use, although they will have the option to determine the rental conditions.
According to Musk, “end users will be able to add or remove the car from the fleet whenever they want, and they can decide if they want their car to be used only by their friends, family, or exclusively by five-star users.” Moreover, the former Twitter owner pointed out that the owners of these vehicles can rent out the car to another user who can drive it when the owner is not using it, “like in Airbnb”. Thus, “you could rent out your guest room, whenever you want,” Musk added.
The goal of this plan is to train the AI model operating in Tesla’s self-driving system, whose latest version is the FSD (Full-Self-Driving) 12.3. This type of technology needs to continuously operate to detect flaws, correct them, and make the right decisions. This is how other algorithms work, like Google, YouTube, or ChatGPT: the more they are used, the more data they process, increasing their efficiency. Therefore, if a user uses Tesla’s autonomous car on weekends, the company is interested in that vehicle being used by other drivers so that its self-driving system can improve.
It seems that Elon Musk knows that cars spend 95% of their time parked, a factor that can affect Tesla’s technology development. However, the South African magnate has a parallel plan. Since autonomous cars require a very high technological level for their operation, Musk wants these vehicles to be able to use their chips for other tasks when not in use. “Like Amazon Web Services,” Tesla’s CEO said.
On the other hand, the businessman seems to have found an interesting business model in the current context. Climate change has pushed numerous cities to increase green spaces and expand bike lanes, changing ways of transportation and causing an increase in vehicle sharing that Elon Musk doesn’t overlook. Thus, in 2023, BlaBlaCar recorded a 7% increase in its activity in Spain, setting a new user record. This trend is growing, and data from Fleet Europe indicate that the number of these passengers will reach 269.4 million in 2027, a figure higher than the 123.4 million in 2022.
It remains to be seen whether this Tesla project will succeed or fail like the hyperloop. What is certain is that the company’s self-driving system is, for Elon Musk, the key element for the company, to the point of affirming that if someone is thinking of acquiring shares in the company, “they must drive the FSD 12.3,” otherwise, “it’s impossible to understand the company.” In this sense, Musk indicates that they are reinforcing the “autonomous element in the car.” Therefore, considering Tesla’s strategy as if it were a traditional car manufacturer is, for the SpaceX owner, wrong. “It’s like asking me about the future horse carriages you’re making. I’m like: well, you really don’t need a horse. That’s the point.”
For now, the company is clear that, for its automotive division to continue operating successfully, it is necessary to establish more affordable prices. This was indicated in the publication of the results for the first quarter of 2024, where Tesla announced its goal of “updating our model lineup to present them before starting production in the second half of 2025. Although the company suffered the biggest revenue drop in 12 years, the announcement of cheaper cars has led to a more than 27% increase in the stock market in the last five sessions.
