More taxis mean more CAPEx, mean utilization goes down off-peak, bothe of which result in lower profitability.
Robot driver or not, basic financials and operational constraints still apply. They can only be ignored for quite a while if a company has endless VC money, unit economics ultimately catch up so, always.
> It arrives faster because there are more of them
I think you’re overestimating how many people will buy Teslas.
Also, how many people who own Teslas would robotaxi it. A company might do it as a business, but it’d just take waking up one morning to discover a drunk passenger puked all over your back seat, or fluid remains of someone having sex in there [1] for individual owners to pull out of the program.
It is way cheaper because majority of Uber cost is the driver.
That is only true because Uber doesn't have to pay for buying and maintaining the cars in their 'fleet', having offloaded that cost to their drivers. If Uber were to move to owning robotaxis then they have to have to move the car ownership costs back onto their books.
But sure, as long as other take all the costs and most of risks away from the new liberatrian tech nobility we are suppossed to not care about those little things, right?
It is way cheaper because majority of Uber cost is the driver.
Safety: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38456847
It is more convenient because it has more space. No drivers seat, steering wheel etc.