Tesla owners who rent out their vehicles to the soon-to-be driverless ride-sharing service Cybercab will be able to pay for at least their monthly lease.
Elon Musk made these remarks at the company’s 2024 Annual Stockholder Meeting, where he also accepted his $56 billion pay package bonus, which was decided upon in 2018 and was contingent on Tesla meeting specific stock price benchmarks.
It appears that everyone who now owns a Tesla vehicle will be able to lease it to the Cybercab fleet for as long as it suits them, in addition to the Robotaxi and other vehicles owned and controlled by Tesla.
Elon Musk used the example of a person who is going on a week-long vacation and can request to join the fleet by tapping a button on a special app during that period. If the owner knows they won’t need the car then, their Teslas can be added to the fleet for a few hours or even weeks.
Elon claimed that although Tesla will charge for the upkeep and management of the Cybercab fleet, the majority of the proceeds will go to the owner.
He expressed confidence that consumers would be able to recover the monthly payment on their Tesla vehicle in this manner, and he quoted estimates from Arc Investment’s Cathie Wood that autonomy might increase Tesla’s market capitalization by $5 trillion in the future.
Tesla is already preparing to launch the Robotaxi and Cybercab ride-hailing services on August 8 and is adding warning indicators to the code strings in its APIs.
Recent revelations of a Rider Quality score and Guest Mode features suggest that the Tesla Cybercab fleet would be modeled after Uber’s operations, with personal automobiles being lent out in a manner akin to Airbnb rentals.
Indeed, Musk brought up Uber multiple times, notably when he explained that Tesla will deduct a fee from the car owner’s ride-sharing earnings at Cybercab when the car is lent to the service.
When questioned about potential interventions in an autonomous vehicle, Musk stated that the autonomous driving service will be safer than human drivers and that Tesla is creating FSD with the intention of being more cautious toward vulnerable traffic participants like bike riders or pedestrians.
It’s still unclear what Tesla will reveal on August 8 as the Robotaxi and Cybercab fleet haven’t been authorized for use on public roads.
