원문 보기
Hello everyone. I'm John from JP Strategic Investments, and today we're going to talk about some recent tweets from Katie Wood from ARK Invest about Uber and Lyft, comparing their business models to Tesla's potential robo-taxi network. I'll tell you what Katie said, what it means, and how it could affect the stocks of these companies .
So let's get started. A few days ago, a Twitter user under the nickname Asian Miracle wrote to Katie Wood about Uber, asking why ARK Invest didn't make Uber a significant part of its portfolio, and adding at the end that they believe Uber will be part of the future of transportation. This is apparently a view shared by most Uber investors, and it is supported by the fact that Uber is currently the global leader in ridesharing and is closing in on leadership in food delivery.
Although Katie Wood disagrees, and of course her answer has to do with Tesla. She responded: "Uber and Lyft have remained private for too long and have lost their essence." They could incentivize their drivers to install sensors on their cars and collect data much faster than even Tesla. Autonomy is an artificial intelligence project.
The winners will have the highest quality data and the best expertise in the field of artificial intelligence. So, essentially, she's saying that while the future of transportation is ridesharing, it's also autonomy. And in this case, she argues that autonomy is the most important part. Most of you probably know that Katie Wood and ARK Invest firmly believe that Tesla can achieve its goal of creating a fully autonomous fleet of robo-taxis.
This seems to be the main reason why she believes companies like Uber and Lyft are not good investments. Because while they may remain successful in the short term, they ultimately lose because they don't focus on autonomy. She even backs it up with a second tweet in response to another Twitter user.
Twitter user Focus on the Risk responded to Katie's tweet with the words: “Uber is already a verb. Don't discount strong brands. "Besides, think about how profitable Uber would be if they raised prices by 50%, which wouldn't affect demand." Whether Uber could actually raise prices by 50% without affecting demand is a debatable question, but Katie's answer shows that she does n't think it matters.
She says: “A strong brand, yes, but their revenue share will likely fall from 20-25% to 5% or less as a source of customers for autonomous taxi networks like the one ARK Invest believes will dominate the US thanks to Tesla.” So, in her opinion, it doesn't matter whether Uber can raise prices now, it only matters what they can do after the launch of the autonomous taxi network, and Arc Invest apparently believes that this company will be Tesla.
This is because a network of autonomous taxis will obviously be significantly cheaper to operate than a network with drivers. So, Tesla will be able to offer rides at much lower rates than Uber and Lyft , while earning the same or even higher profits. This means that to compete with Tesla, Uber and Lyft will be forced to significantly lower their prices, which will significantly reduce their profitability.
So, in short, Arc Invest does not own shares of Uber and Lyft because they believe that Tesla will eventually capture a larger market share in the ridesharing industry. So, the question is whether this is possible and how it will affect their shares. Well, I tend to agree with Katie Wood that Tesla will eventually be the first company to achieve full autonomy and the first to introduce a large-scale robotaxi service.
If they can do this, it won't matter how strong Uber's brand is, as Tesla will be able to lower prices while making a nice profit because they won't have to pay drivers. Paying drivers is at the heart of Uber and Lyft's path to profitability, as they spent record amounts of money on California's Proposition 22 and now say fares could increase by up to 50% due to a new minimum wage law for drivers in Seattle.
Tesla won't have to deal with anything like that in a driverless network. Of course, after Tesla, other companies capable of producing autonomous vehicles may emerge, and Uber and Lyft will likely be among the first in line to receive them. And when they do, they may find themselves on more level playing field with Tesla.
But again, they won't have the advantages that Tesla has as a vertically integrated company , such as complete control over cars and autonomous technology, which would allow Tesla to run its robo-taxis network much more efficiently than anything Uber and Lyft will have. For this reason, I believe that Katie Wood's decision not to own these shares is probably the right one.
While investors will likely be able to make a nice profit from these stocks in the short term, their already high valuations are set to fall over time as autonomy becomes a reality and Tesla is able to execute on its robo-taxi plan. Leave a comment below and tell us what you think about these tweets and whether you plan to invest in any of these companies.
I hope this information and analysis was useful to you , and if so, please like, subscribe to the channel, and have a nice day.
Comments 0