Tesla begins to flood the streets with Cybertrucks: the threat to Uber already seems real
Tesla's Cybertruck is starting to accelerate, the streets in Austin, Texas are already filling with vehicles without a steering wheel: and videos of people using the service are going viral.
And behind the scenes, the numbers are starting to turn the story from something futuristic into a real competitive threat.
According to estimates, Tesla has already produced about 2,500 Cybertrucks to date. This is still a small number, but what is important is the acceleration rate.
The estimate is that by the end of 2026, the weekly production rate may reach 1,000 to 2,000 vehicles. At the upper end, this is an annual rate of about 100,000 units.
To understand the significance, it is enough to look at Uber.
100,000 Cybertrucks per year are about 15% of Uber's active ride-sharing fleet in the US.
If Tesla manages to reach and maintain such a rate, it could theoretically produce a number of vehicles within about six years that approaches Uber's entire active fleet in the US.
But here the story becomes much more aggressive.
A Cybertruck does not need to replace Uber's entire fleet to break its business model. It needs to be cheap enough to take a significant share of rides.
The expected cost of a Cybertruck may be around $0.40 per kilometer. If this number materializes, it represents a huge advantage compared to a model based on a human driver.
And this is precisely the point where the market may start to look differently at Uber.
Uber is not just competing against a new car.
It is competing against a car that does not receive a salary.
A human driver is one of the central costs of every ride. When removed from the equation, the cost structure changes completely.
And this creates an advantage for Tesla that can grow and expand as the fleet grows.
And what about Waymo?
Waymo may actually be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the revolution.
If the public and regulators get used to driverless vehicles, the entire market will open up.
But on the other hand, for the first time, Waymo will have to face the hardest question of all:
Who can deploy a larger fleet, faster, and at a lower cost?
But it is important to remember that producing 100,000 Cybertrucks per year is only half the story.
They also need to be operated.
Charging stations, cleaning, maintenance, parking, fleet management, and troubleshooting are needed.
A private car can return to its owner's home at night.
A robotaxi fleet cannot.
It needs an operational infrastructure that allows it to work almost around the clock.
Therefore, one of Tesla's biggest tests will be whether it can use its existing infrastructure and build upon it, or if it will have to establish a new operational network almost from scratch.
And this could be the real bottleneck.
And if this really works, then the implications extend far beyond Uber.
Taxi drivers and Uber drivers will face a competitor that does not need to sleep, does not need breaks, and does not demand a salary.
Traditional car manufacturers may face a change in demand: if people can order a cheap and autonomous ride whenever they need a car, the need to own a private car may change.
Even the car insurance industry may change if the accident rate for autonomous vehicles is significantly lower.
And lawyers in the field of road accidents may find themselves facing a world where fewer accidents mean fewer claims.
This is no longer a car thesis.
This is a thesis of change for the transportation economy.
The number to track is not just how many Cybertrucks Tesla produces.
The truly important number is how many of them actually work, in which cities, how many rides they perform per day, and what the true cost of each ride is.
If Tesla manages to open this tap, Uber will not be facing just another competitor.
It will face a technological change that threatens to turn the human driver from a service provider into a cost point that the market is no longer willing to pay for.
And this time, Uber's problem is not that Tesla wants to take its passengers: Tesla wants to take away the reason a driver is needed in the first place.
Whoever thinks this is just another Tesla vehicle is probably looking at the steering wheel and missing the whole road.