Uber CEO Wants To Buy 500,000 Tesla Vehicles

Self-driving cars are expected in the United States by 2020. Uber, the controversial ride-sharing app is already here. Tesla Motors is one of the automakers planning to build a self-driving vehicle. The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, wants to bring self-driving cars, Tesla Motors and Uber together. However, before Kalanick can see the union between Tesla Motors and Uber, they need to make a self-driving vehicle.

The reason why Kalanick’s interest in Tesla is newsworthy is because of its potential scale. Numerous reports, including one from Green Car Reports, have indicated that Kalanick said he had a very strong interest in Tesla’s next generation of vehicles. GCR reports Kalanick said during a “top 10 tech trends” dinner he would buy every self-driving car that Tesla produces that year. Remember, with the creation of a Gigafactory to scale up production, Tesla wants to be making 500,000 self-driving cars by 2020. The desire to buy Tesla vehicles was leaked by Tesla investor and board member, Steve Jurvetson.

Was Kalanick speaking in serious terms or just making noise at a jovial dinner? Regardless of the answer, automakers need to be able to compete. If Kalanick, is looking to purchase a fleet of self-driving cars, is there a Tesla alternative? Carlos Ghosen, the CEO of Nissan, thinks there is.

He said on May 18, 2015, that self-driving Nissans will be ready by 2020. Thus, if Tesla fails to meet their preset timeline, which has happened multiple times, could a traditional automaker such as Nissan take at least a half million sales away from Tesla? If they do, it will certainly signal a victory for dealers as they continually deal with ever-expanding Tesla Motors.