Uber CEO Khosrowshahi Comments on Elon Musk's Robotaxi Idea

TapTechNews August 10th news, according to a report by Business Insider early this morning Beijing time, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the ride-hailing giant, said that Elon Musk's idea about Robotaxi might have big problems.

Elon Musk's vision is that Tesla owners rent out their vehicles as taxis when they are not in use, thereby creating a private fleet of self-driving taxis that can be summoned with just a click of a button. Elon Musk said that Tesla owners can earn up to $30,000 (TapTechNews note: currently about 215,000 yuan) per year.

In the Logan Bartlett Show on Friday local time, Khosrowshahi bluntly said that he didn't know whether the average Tesla owner would be willing to let a complete stranger ride in their car, and questioned whether Robotaxi could meet the demand during peak hours. Maybe when you want to use the car, it just hits the peak passenger volume time.

Khosrowshahi also didn't forget to advertise for his own company. He said that Uber can quickly adjust the number of part-time drivers to meet the needs during peak hours or during large events.

He also believes that Elon Musk may have underestimated a key part of the business - building a hardware (such as a car) worth $50,000 (currently about 359,000 yuan), compared to driving more than 30 million transactions every day, it is a very, very different business. Not only that, there are also problems in customer service, such as what to do if someone gets sick in the car or accidentally loses something.

Khosrowshahi also extended an olive branch to Elon Musk: For example, Tesla can build self-driving cars and then cooperate with Uber to turn them into ride-hailing services. We have spent 15 years. We have spent tens of billions of dollars in funds, and we can immediately provide these funds to partners, hoping that Tesla can be one of our partners.