저자: CathieWood · 외국인
요약 보기
테슬라 매출은 EV 부진으로 어렵지만 로보택시 전환으로 자동차 마진 15%에서 SaaS형 70~80% 마진 구조로 바뀐다고 주장. 애널리스트들이 로보택시를 모델에 반영하기 시작하며 목표가가 상향되는 중이라 평가. 로보택시 확산은 예상보다 빠를 것이며 Waymo와의 경쟁도 긍정적으로 봄. 옵티머스는 완성 난이도가 높지만 사고 위험이 낮아 테슬라가 공격적으로 확장할 수 있고 장기적으로 수억~10억 대 규모 잠재력이 있다고 설명. 시장이 옵티머스를 간과하고 있다고 지적.
다듬은 글
Here's Cathie Wood of Ark Invest, sharing her latest thoughts on Tesla. Tesla's always been one of your big holdings. You know, in terms of just sales, obviously things have been challenged, but there's a lot of excitement about autonomy. There's a lot of excitement about the Optimus robot. What is your What is your sense of where things stand at Tesla right now?
Yes, the EV sales environment has been challenged, but the market is shifting its focus to the robotaxi opportunity. So, removing from 15% gross margins in autos, the hardware, to more of a SaaS model where robotaxis recurring revenue model is those margins are more in the 70s and 80s. And I think as analysts understand that that's where Tesla's going, and they start building in the model for robotaxis, they see they see tremendous opportunity.
So, it's been interesting to me to see upgrades even by some auto analysts now that they're beginning to understand that this is not an auto company. Maybe I'm having a chuckle to myself while I'm watching this. Listening to Cathie Wood, she's right, noting her own almost amusement at the fact that only now are many of the analysts who've been covering Tesla stock for years starting to understand that Tesla is not just a car company.
As a result, Cathie Wood somewhat amused to see some of them to increase their price targets, their fair valuations for Tesla because now some of them are starting, beginning to model some of the potential implications of Tesla robotaxis. The reason I find this so amusing is how predictable it all was.
If you're new around here, back in 2021, I first published my Tesla valuation model on Patreon, one of the many exclusive perks to my supporters. At that time, it was a 10-year valuation model, doing my best to estimate worst-case scenario, the bear case, the base case, more likely a bull case for Tesla.
And my best guess at the time, back in 2021, was that Tesla would launch and have at least a few robotaxis taking passengers from point A to point B fully autonomously by late 2024. Turns out I was off by six or so months. Tesla first launched in Austin mid-2025. The reason I included robotaxis in my 10-year model is it seemed to me inevitable that sometime over that 10-year timeframe Tesla will in fact launch robotaxis.
The timing look I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know exactly when, but obviously, they're not far off. And to not attempt to model the financial implications of something so transformative as autonomy, Cathie Wood rightly pointing out, Tesla transitioning from a vehicle business where maybe 15% automotive margins on a good day to a much more software-like business model with profit margins in the 70 to 80% range, to not try to model that out, something that will be so utterly transformative to the company's valuation, for analysts only now to start doing this and go, "Oh, oh Oh, massively increasing Tesla price target cuz cuz robotaxi." It's mind-boggling.
The real reason I find this so amusing isn't because the analysts ignored autonomy until after they first launched their robotaxi service in Austin. It's that I predicted this is exactly what would happen. Years ago I said, on the record here, "Since daring to model the potential implications and attempt to analyze and forecast when a financially transformative service may launch in the future will get you sent directly to prison for the rest of your life if you're an analyst." Since courage is illegal among stock analysts, these folks will need to get turkey-slapped across the face with autonomy before any of them will have the courage to actually start modeling the implications.
That's exactly what we've seen. Let me tell you guys a secret about investing. The name of the game, what it really boils down to, is making your best effort to look into the future, to see around corners, to identify, anticipate, and model opportunities before they're right in front of your nose. This does require a brain.
It also requires actually using your brain. But if you are willing to do this and others are unwilling to even try, you're doing your best to look into the future, to see around corners, and others have their eyes closed, "That's too hard. It's illegal. I'll go to prison." etc. I'm not even going to open my eyes, you may in fact gain a massive advantage identifying future opportunities, probable outcomes, before they're obvious to everyone.
That's the real the name of the game when it comes to investing. See something clearly before everyone else does and act accordingly. I remind you, Tesla stock over the last 12 months, an extremely volatile and bumpy ride. You know how many people sold Tesla stock in the low $200 range around March, April, maybe even approaching May in 2025 who also had built a 10-year valuation model for Tesla and in that model had their best guess for Tesla robotaxi revenue, profits, miles per robotaxi, number of robotaxis.
You know how many people sold Tesla stock in this $200 range who also had a 10-year model that included their best estimates for robotaxi? Zero. Now, I know some of you thinking, "Bro, how could you possibly know this?" Source, trust me, bro. And the actual answer is it's not conceivable that anyone who'd modeled Tesla out over 10 years and included estimates for robotaxi, having seen the stock get cut in half in the span of just a couple of months, thought to themselves, "Yeah, this is the perfect time to be selling Tesla stock right now, not out of necessity or due to emergency, but because it's just the right time." It is simply impossible to be that dumb.
That would be like you're hanging out with a girl, you've gone out on a date, it's getting late, you're outside your apartment, and she says, "Hey, could I come inside for a cup of tea?" And you respond by saying, "I'm sorry, I don't have any tea. Good night. Bye." It's simply impossible to be that dumb.
Back to Cathie Wood. Maybe they're working with their tech analysts and understanding the stock a bit better. So, when you think though about autonomous robotaxis and you think about robots, what what does that look like? And And is there an argument Look, some of the critics would say, you know, cars aren't cars aren't working the way they're supposed to be working right now in terms of what's happening with the EV market.
And And some of these other ambitious efforts are going to take a long time to get to a meaningful escape velocity. Well, we're keeping an eye on how quickly Tesla's footprint is expanding here. And it's expanding a lot faster, I think, than many people expected. And it's interesting to watch Waymo as well.
We draw in Texas. We draw the footprint and And they're competing with each other. Competition is a good thing. So, I think this is actually going to happen faster than most analysts think in terms of the proliferation of robotaxis, especially if we get more federal legislation instead of just state by state.
On the Optimus robot side, there's a lot of excitement in robotics that in the private markets has been a huge space this this past year. We look at an Optimus robot, our chief futurist Brett Winton working with Sam and Daniel, have concluded that an Optimus robot is going to be 200,000 times more difficult to get working correctly relative to relative to a robotaxi.
[clears throat] So, you'll have You'll have waves of Optimus improving with time, but full human is is going to be quite difficult. Nonetheless, the the robots that we're seeing, you know, pick and pack and and lifting things, they're starting to make waves. Couple of thoughts here. First, regarding the estimate of the humanoid robots 200,000 times more difficult.
I covered this at the time, the math wasn't really mathing. I'm not going to go over it. Certainly, it is a difficult challenge, but couple of things working in Tesla's favor. The stakes are nowhere near as high with a humanoid robot making a mistake versus a multi-thousand ton death machine on wheels, also known as a vehicle.
If an autonomous vehicle makes a mistake, somebody can die. Multiple people can die. Could also be permanently injured or disabled. If a humanoid robot makes a mistake, it's extremely unlikely anyone's going to die. Physics is physics. Humanoid robot is a low-mass, low-velocity object. If things go wrong, the most likely outcome, people working alongside an Optimus humanoid robot are annoyed.
It knocked something over, it spilled something, it dropped something, it broke a product, jammed up a production line. How annoying. This means Tesla can be much more aggressive, less cautious with rollout and scale. Another advantage Tesla has is being their own first customer. Tesla is a mass manufacturer.
They have many, many tens of thousands of use cases for humanoid robots in their own factories worldwide. This will allow Tesla to deploy Optimus humanoid robots under real conditions in real factories doing real work without the risk of their customer, because Tesla's their own customer, getting butt hurt or mad or upset or having a sulk because their early Optimus robots aren't as productive as they hoped or they make some mistakes or they're slowing things down.
So, Tesla can refine the design, the capabilities, train at scale in their own facilities, get Optimus robots useful and functional in a factory and warehouse type setting, nail that, then start selling and or leasing them to customers in similar conditions, then from there continue to expand their skill set, what they can do, and go on.
The point here, from conception a few years ago until first viable commercial products sold to customers, the timeline for the humanoid robots will be much quicker than Tesla robotaxis. And the potential long-term scale, if we're being real here, I mean you don't have to be super smart to figure out the number of taxis, Ubers, etc.
on Earth today, full-time equivalents, number of miles driven. If cost per mile comes down, total potential miles driven in autonomous vehicles, you can figure this out. It's a lot. It's staggering, actually. We're talking about many trillions and trillions of dollars of potential revenue. However, that astronomical opportunity pales in comparison to the potential scale of the Optimus humanoid robot.
And Tesla themselves are talking about hundreds of millions, if not a billion plus Optimus humanoid robots per year. Possibly a one-to-one ratio of Optimus to humans, and that's a baseline. So, my point, remember earlier I talked about the entire point of investing was to do your best to see around corners and to look into the future.
Analysts now only just starting to model the possible implications of autonomy, of robotaxis at scale, are extremely likely to suffer from shiny object syndrome, latch onto autonomy, be blown away by how quickly Tesla scales, how profitable and dominant this service becomes. While they're fixated on this, busting 12 consecutive nuts, holy autonomy's wow, dude, price target increase, blah blah blah, holy I can't believe, blah blah blah.
I've got a funny feeling they're going to completely ignore what's happening with Optimus until it's too late. That's probably unwise. Want more content, early access, bunch of perks? Click the links in the pinned comment. AG1 has been part of my daily health protocol for almost half a decade. It's packed full of vitamins and minerals and helps me fill in nutritional gaps while supporting energy, digestion, and immune function.
It also has prebiotics and probiotics to promote gut health. I take my health very seriously, and so should you. Try AG1 today by visiting drinkag1.com/smr or click the link in the pinned comment and enjoy a free welcome kit with vitamin D3 plus K2 and AG1 travel packs. That's drinkag1.com/smr.
Comments 0