When Cathie Wood's Ark Saw A $1 Trillion Opportunity For Elon Musk's Tesla In Delivery Robots

Tesla Inc. TSLA bull Cathie Wood-run Ark Invest in early February provided some insights into what the electric vehicle maker would be up to in the near- and medium term.

What Happened: CEO Elon Musk and his team had hinted on the company’s earnings call in January that some new products, including an inference computer for applications beyond automotive, could be in the pipeline. Some of these applications will blow people’s minds when revealed, the billionaire entrepreneur had said on the call.

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Ark Invest analyst Tasha Keeney said Tesla’s data library and training/inference tools are positioning the company to build other autonomous machines that navigate the physical world. These could include drones or last-mile delivery robots, she added. This could be an attractive opportunity for Tesla, going by Ark’s estimate that real-time delivery robots that fly and roll could generate $1 trillion in revenue in 2030.

This is in addition to the humanoid robot Optimus the company is building and the robotaxi service it is planning for, the analyst said.

Robotaxi, A Big Opportunity: Musk sees autonomous taxi platforms resulting in the largest asset value creation in history, Keeney noted. Ark expects autonomous ride-hail to turn cars, which are stranded assets used less than 5% of the day, into assets generating significant recurring cash flows.

“Each of Tesla’s autonomous ride-hail vehicles could generate ~$20,000 annually, contributing importantly to our published price target for 2026,” Keeney had said.

Tesla has a mature product pipeline, comprising its best-selling electric vehicle Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV as well as its premium Model S, and X sedans. In December 2022, the company commercially launched its Tesla Semi, a battery-electric Class 8 semi-truck.

A Cybertruck is expected to roll out of Tesla’s production line later this year and rumor has it that a sub-$30,000 EV will soon be announced.

Price Action: Tesla closed Tuesday’s session at $173.22, up 3.94%, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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This story was originally published on February 1, 2023