Cathie Wood says almost all of Tesla’s value now sits in robotaxis, not in selling electric cars. She told Peter Switzer that ARK is about to publish a model that lets you test the claim yourself.
Speaking on this week’s Switzer Show, ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood has put a number on how much of Tesla’s future rests on driverless cars.
“According to our research, the robotaxi opportunity alone will account for 90% of Tesla’s value in five years,” she told Peter Switzer on the Switzer Show.
ARK’s modelling puts the figure at nearly 90 per cent of Tesla’s enterprise value and earnings by 2029. Electric vehicles, the business most investors still think of as Tesla, account for about a quarter of sales and roughly 10 per cent of earnings potential on the same model.
The test drive
Wood said her own read on the technology comes from driving it. She has a new Tesla fitted with Full Self-Driving, bought to test the latest software, and uses it around St Petersburg, Florida.
“I don’t have to use the steering wheel or accelerator or brake,” she said, adding that the car parks itself.
She expects public uptake to arrive in a rush rather than a steady climb, describing it as “slowly, slowly, then all at once”.
In some American cities, she said, riders are already choosing to wait longer and pay more for a driverless car than for an Uber.
What is really set to change the game for Tesla, however – according to Wood – is the idea that a Tesla owner could send the car out to work autonomously.
Wood said an owner will be able to put their car on Tesla’s platform for a few hours at a time to give other people autonomous rides. Do that for about an hour a day, she said, and “you would pay off your car in two to three years”.
She was less sure about doing it herself. “Maybe my old one, but not my new one,” she joked.
ARK has a price target on the stock. “We are in print with a price target at US$2,600,” Wood said. ARK published that figure in June 2024 as the expected value of Tesla shares in 2029, with a bull case near US$3,100 and a bear case near US$2,000.
Wood said ARK has gathered more data since, and is preparing a new financial model due in September that will be opened up to the public as an interactive data set.
Users will be able to “manipulate the variables that we think are important to the long-term valuation”, she said, including the assumption doing the heaviest lifting.
“If you think we’re too aggressive on the robotaxi rollout, you can dial it down and see what kind of number will come out,” she said.
Wood said that “even if you cut our expectations for robotaxi in half”, Tesla would still deliver a strong compound annual return over the next five years.
Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin in June 2025 and has since expanded to more American cities. ARK’s new model is due in September.
This article does not take into account the investment objectives, financial situation or particular needs of any individual. It does not constitute formal advice. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
