Tesla Launches First Robotaxi with Shadow Car - my thoughts

So, everyone's getting really excited

about the Tesla robo taxi that was

spotted in Austin. As you can see here,

thanks to the white seats, there is

nobody in the front of the vehicle. Now,

we'll play this clip and show you Elon

Musk's reaction. I do also want to

mention that there is this following

very closely

secondary Tesla right behind it. Might

be worth commenting on this. Also

appears to be a marathon of some sort

going on over here. You'd see on the

side of the vehicle, there appears to be

a marking that says Robo Taxi kind of

scribbled on or etched onto the side.

And there's your follow car. So rather

than a lead car, you have a follow car

in this case, which is quite interesting

because it does beg the question, is

this a follow car that's designed to try

to, you know, videotape what's going on,

which would be a hard thing to do

through a windshield? So, usually you

would have a mounted camera rig to, you

know, shoot some kind of pitch or

whatever. So, I don't think they're

doing that. Uh, it's likely that this is

just a safety car uh that may have some

kind of remote controllable kill switch

or maybe even uh you know an a Tesla

like an employee Tesla app on their

phone where they can you know if the car

stops uh accelerate it or move it or

emergency shut it down or whatever. So,

I suspect this is a tasty se testing

vehicle, which I think is actually very

wise for Tesla to utilize because you

you you don't want these cars having an

accident because if there was a

preventable second car accident that

this car causes, it would cost Tesla a

lot of money in market cap. Mind you

that this uh the the goal here is likely

just to capture edge case scenarios and

be able to prevent edge case

scenario-based accidents. very very

normal in robo taxi testing. Uh also

very nice though to see this just in the

wild driving around. Very cool. Now one

thing that we're finding is Elon Musk

says beautifully simple design. Uh and

he also says these are unmodified Tesla

cars coming straight from the factory.

Very interesting. Meaning that every

Tesla coming out of our factories is

capable of unsupervised driving. Now, I

think uh it's fair to sort of make the

argument that it's not really

unsupervised when you literally have a

supervisor right behind it. Uh so, we'll

kind of just mark that in red right

there. But, you know, unsupervised would

mean no uh follow car, right? Uh but we

clearly have a follow car here. But

that's okay. The vehicle itself is

unsupervised. So, I think there's a

reason to be bullish on that. Uh so,

this is exciting. This is a big step for

Tesla and it actually seems to come

sooner than we thought. Uh I mean, yeah,

obviously, you know, it's a monitored

robo taxi, but again, call it a safety

car. I think bears are going to look at

that and go, "Oh, you can't even pull it

off without uh uh you know, without a

supervisor that's now outside the

vehicle." Other people say, "Yeah, the

cost of having a supervisor preventing

just one oopsie-doopsy is so worth it

for the stock." Totally agree with that.

very curious to see where we will end up

with in terms of like actual uh public

ability to get into these cars because

frankly this is a really big moment for

Tesla. If we're in a moment for Tesla

where it truly becomes the case that

this is not some hardware 5 cyber cab

technology which is what we heard after

the robo taxi event that the cyber cabs

were utilizing

some form of major uh you know upscaled

hardware and camera suite then then this

is really bullish for Tesla because it

does actually mean that if you buy a new

Tesla today you're basically buying

a robo taxi, which is extremely bullish.

If you know this car is totally

uncapable of pulling this off without a

supervisor tail following it, uh then

then you know you're probably in a place

where uh you're not really um getting

that that big of a boost here. Now, can

you start the process of robo taxi

deployment? Yeah, totally. But you're

also then behind what Zuks is doing or

behind what Whimo is doing because

you're in an environment where you're

still supervising you. So now it takes

two cars to do the work of one taxi.

Like you may as well just have the

person following the car in the back be

the taxi driver in that case, right? So

again, you lose the supervisor though

because maybe we're just going to do the

first, this is my hope, you do the first

few weeks of robo taxi deployment with

some supervisors behind and then you

slowly get rid of those detached

supervisors because it's totally

separate vehicle, right? So the car

itself is on its own. That's a big

moment for Tesla. It catches you up to

the what Whimo is doing, what Zuks is

doing. Uh it's also worth noting that

right now this this is this test is not

being conducted in uh an environment of

bad weather. Uh conditions seem pretty

clear. It's obviously in a limited

location. Austin, Texas. Let's look at

the weather for Austin. You are going to

have rain uh

more likely tonight though. Looks like

you'll have uh some rain tonight. So,

it'll be interesting to see if they

purposefully chose to do this today

because they were going to have less

rain in the early part of the day.

Whereas, Wednesday, you've got rain

pretty much throughout the day. You've

got rain pretty much throughout the day

on Thursday. Could have less but a

decent amount of rain still on Friday.

You've got a pretty rainy week ahead

until next Monday. So, it's possible

today just provided fewer weather

related events. And I'm not saying that

the cars can't drive in the rain.

Obviously, I've used uh FSD plenty of

times in the rain, but let's be clear,

there are plenty of errors that can come

up when the cameras get covered with

water or sunlight or whatever where you

get the warnings that say low

visibility, you know, pay closer

attention, blahy blahy blahy, whatever.

Uh these are these are all the important

next steps for Tesla. And I will say

long short of it, having these vehicles

on the road right now, great milestone

for Tesla. Now, when it comes to I saw

Dave uh had a comment on Tesla about

some kind of potential

uh you know, licensing deal and he tags

Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford. high

likelihood in my opinion that Tesla

signs an FSD licensing deal with at

least one automaker by the year end.

Will take a couple of years for the

automaker to integrate. Well, this is

true because in earnings calls, we've

previously heard that it could take as

long as 3 years to actually get the

vehicles on the road with FSD installed.

But I think the announcement will be a

surprise to most observers and analysts

because this will be a new line of

business for Tesla that money not many

are expecting uh and not many are

expecting that it would be announced

soon. Yeah, this this is interesting.

They also say the Austin robo taxi

launch could be the catalyst that gives

another automaker the confidence to ink

the FSD deal. So, you know, I originally

thought that this is a high highly

unlikely event uh that Tesla ends up

signing a licensing deal just because

we've heard about this for years and it

just hasn't happened. We've heard about

it since the beginning of 2023. However,

I think Dave is right to say that the

robo taxi launch could provide a

catalyst that is actually positive uh

for this sort of deal. So, I find that

very interesting and uh and somewhat

agree with this. Now, whether or not

it'll be, you know, Ford, who knows? Uh

but yes, Elon has much more than hinted

in the past that they already had talks

with an OEM. He has blatantly said

multiple times since 2023 that they're

in talks with at least one other

manufacturer. Uh so, I don't think

that's much of a secret there. Now, uh,

if we go back to Elon here, we could

take a quick look at

some of the responses to Why is this not

showing?

Oh, come on. Here we go.

Uh, okay. So, what is this? It's go

time. Car here. Let's see what people

Maybe still a car chasing, though.

Safety first. Agree. Apparently, safety

second.

That's a good good one. Buddy worked as

a ski ambulance driver. Motto was safety

third. People would ask what the first

two are, and the answer was ski fast and

take chances.

Nice. Okay.

Uh, was there anyone in the white car?

Yes, you can see people in the white

car. Robo taxi logo is sick. Can't

believe it took this long for somebody

to record one. That's true. I mean, but

then again, it's also possible that like

it's very likely that they're like,

"Hey, we're going to drive past this

intersection. Somebody create like

somebody film a candid clip, you know,

like it was probably a Tesla employee

who filmed this because like where

they're standing over here kind of

implies that they already knew that this

robo taxi was coming. I mean, it's not

like they ran alongside of it on this

side, unless it's just doing looping

patterns. The person who's filming this

is likely an insider. They knew it was

coming. They knew it was going to come

by this intersection cuz who stands on

an intersection and goes and films two

random Teslas? It doesn't even look like

a cyber cap, right? So, it was probably

an insider that uh that filmed this,

which is fine. Like, it doesn't make a

difference. Who cares? It just means

it's more of a social media kind of like

orchestrated

stunt. Uh, and I think that's why you've

got the safety car. It's probably a

little bit of a stock pump. But hey, if

we could get rid of that safety car and

we could pull this off, maybe we could

finally break off that 318 line, which,

you know, we've been bobbing around. We

were 347 before Elon's freakout. So, you

know, it'd be nice to see uh an actual

sustained breakout above 318 again here.

So, uh, my take or the person recording

was recording the runners across the

street. You know, that's actually an

even better Oh, I hear the babies.

They're awake. I'm going to go grab one

in a sec. That's actually a better

analogy or or a suggestion. Like, I just

I'm not really trying to film the cars.

I'm trying to like pretend to be filming

the cars while trying to get the fitness

girls on camera. Yeah,

my kind of guy.

Hey, quick reminder. If you want to earn

a 5% yield plus all of the upside in my

real estate startup, we are offering a

nonacredited investor round where we

will pay you a 5% yield plus you get all

of the upside in the stock when your

stock converts in the future. It gives

you an opportunity to diversify away

from rich stock market valuations,

diversify away from most tariff risk,

diversify away from the craziness of the

treasuries market, especially with these

Moody's downgrades. You diversify into

fixer upper real estate, which is what I

believe I do best. This is my baby. I

call it my little Birkshire Hathaway.

Now, maybe I'm biased, but I've got over

$5 million of my own money invested into

this business, and I'm so excited for

what I think we're going to be able to

do with this business over not just the

next years, but the next decades. So, if

you want to invest in my real estate

startup, go to househack.com and know

that I will do everything for this

business in my power to make sure we can

do the absolute best that we can. Make

sure to read the solicitations and

disclosures on the House hack website

because there is risk with every

investment.