Will Tesla Partner With Uber?

Tesla Motors could be joining forces with Uber. The ride sharing company could be teaming-up with Tesla Motors to make the future of ride sharing driverless. Steve Jurvetson, a board member for Tesla Motors, has been the source of a Tesla-Uber rumor. The rumbling is that Uber wants to buy 500,000 Tesla vehicles by 2020. Those half-million Tesla machines wouldn’t be intended for everyday drivers, rather they would be self-driving. A bizjourals report quotes Jurvetson who says riding in a machine that drives itself is the next innovation in safety.

Jurvetson said in that bizjournals interview, “For those of us who have a chance to be in [an autonomous vehicle], you’ll never go back. I believe they are already safer than my parents, and I would trust my kids with them. And they’re just going to get better.”

While Jurvetson’s talk of a Tesla link to ride sharing is intriguing, more interesting still is what Tesla Founder Elon Musk said on a recent earnings call.

According to a Mashable report, during that phone call, Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jones asked Musk, “is this a real business opportunity for Tesla, supplying cars for ride sharing firms or does Tesla just cut out the middleman and sell on demand electric mobility service directly on its own platform?” Musk was then silent for six seconds. Jones gave Musk and out and said, “You don’t have to answer it.” Musk replied, “I don’t think that I should, uh answer it.”

Thus, given the chance to say Tesla is either going to create their own ride sharing platform or at at least partner and dive into that space, Musk seemed speechless. However, before Musk can make it to partnering with Uber or even manufacturing 500,000 Tesla vehicles per year, the company has to work on its model S problem. Recent reports have indicated Tesla currently loses $4,000 per Model S sold, thus the necessity of a less expensive battery and manufacturing process will be critical to Tesla’s future.

What do you make of Musk’s silence and strange reply about ride sharing? Do you think Tesla will partner with Uber and one day sell them 500,000 vehicles? Finally, will Tesla eventually be able to improve their manufacturing processes in order to avoid losing thousands on every vehicle that they make?