LikeFolio Weekly Roundup: Tesla + Google’s $34 Trillion Prize

For years, most of the AI boom happened behind a screen.

Now it's getting wheels.

Tesla wants autonomous cars to make a ride dramatically cheaper. Google’s Waymo is already showing that consumers will climb into a car with nobody behind the wheel. And inside Amazon’s fulfillment centers, more than 1 million robots are helping move packages.

That shift matters for all three of our Infinite Holds.

This week, we're looking at the $34 trillion robotaxi opportunity Tesla (TSLA) and Google (GOOGL) are chasing – including one number that could completely change the economics of owning a car. Then we'll head inside Amazon's (AMZN) fulfillment network, where the robotics revolution is much further along than most investors realize.

The technology is moving into the real world. And some of our biggest long-term bets are already there.

Infinite Hold Updates

Tesla (TSLA): The $0.25 Mile

Tesla has spent years working toward a future where getting across town no longer requires a driver – or even your own car.

That's the promise behind its robotaxi push. And if Tesla can pull it off, the economics of transportation could change dramatically.

ARK Invest recently put a number on just how dramatic that shift could be.

It estimates autonomous taxis could eventually cost passengers around $0.25 per mile. Compare that with roughly $2.80 per mile for a human-driven ride-hail trip today.

At that price, Tesla wouldn't simply be fighting Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT) for the people who already hail rides.

It could pull trips away from the hundreds of millions of cars Americans already own.

Today, ride-hail accounts for less than 1% of urban miles traveled in the U.S. But ARK estimates roughly 24 million robotaxis could eventually handle the majority of U.S. urban miles, with a fleet equal to less than 10% of the vehicles registered in America today.

That's what makes the potential shift so enormous. A robotaxi doesn't need to replace every car in the driveway. It just needs to make paying for a ride more attractive than driving your own.

Tesla has spent years assembling the pieces needed to make that possible.

It already has enough vehicle production capacity to build fleets capable of serving America's major ride-hail markets. Meanwhile, the millions of Teslas already on the road give the company a massive stream of real-world driving data to keep improving Full Self-Driving (FSD) and teaching its cars to drive themselves.

Those advantages could put Tesla in position to chase an enormous market. ARK estimates the global robotaxi opportunity could support $34 trillion in enterprise value by 2030.

We don't need Tesla to capture anything close to that entire opportunity for robotaxis to reshape the company’s bottom line.

If Tesla can deliver autonomous rides at a fraction of today's cost, it won't just sell consumers the car. It can sell them every mile they travel.

Tesla is already running that sell-the-service model in another business. Yesterday it started leasing Powerwalls, its home backup batteries, to Texas households: two batteries for a net $35 a month for customers who also buy their electricity through Tesla.

Tesla can price the lease that low because it puts the batteries to work, selling the stored power back to the Texas grid when demand spikes. Tesla owns the hardware, customers pay a monthly rate, and the asset earns money around the clock.

That is the robotaxi model working in home power today.

Tesla’s other news this week reaches back to a promise it first made in 2017. The tech outlet The Information reported that Tesla plans to demonstrate its next-generation Roadster, fitted with thrusters built by SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, that are meant to lift the car off the ground.

Tesla’s next-generation Roadster prototype at its 2017 unveil. Photo: Smnt via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Tesla could stage the demonstration as early as this month at SpaceX’s Texas test site, with the car running unmanned and spectators kept hundreds of yards back from the force of the thrusters. Musk followed on Wednesday with a promise that flying cars are coming.

A flying Roadster will never be a volume product.

The Powerwall lease is the move that scales: Tesla selling the service instead of the hardware, in Texas homes today and, if the robotaxi push delivers, on city streets next.

Our demand data backs the hold. Tesla web visits are up 27% from their November low, climbing back toward last summer’s levels.

More shoppers on Tesla’s site now means more customers for every mile, battery, and ride it plans to sell.

Google (GOOGL): Proof the Robotaxi Test Is Working

Tesla and Google are taking different paths toward the same $34 trillion opportunity.

Google's path runs through Waymo, its autonomous-driving company. And after years of development, Waymo is showing that consumers will actually choose a car with no one behind the wheel.

Waymo went from virtually no share of rides in its San Francisco operating zone in August 2023 to more than 20% by August 2025. Uber and Lyft lost share over the same stretch.

Source: ARK Invest Big Ideas 2026 Report

Waymo's growing share suggests consumers aren't simply trying a driverless ride once for the novelty. They're coming back and making autonomous rides part of how they get around.

Our demand data sees the same thing nationwide: Waymo web visits are up 17% from a year ago as the service opens in new cities.

For Google, that gives Waymo a chance to grow from an expensive technology project into a meaningful business. And for Tesla, it offers something valuable, too: real-world evidence that consumers are willing to embrace the autonomous future it's building toward.

The $34 trillion opportunity starts with getting people comfortable climbing into a car with no driver.

Waymo is already clearing that hurdle.

Amazon (AMZN): The 1 Million Robots Behind Your Package

From driverless cars to fulfillment centers, robotics is moving deeper into the physical world.

Amazon has spent years putting that technology to work on a simple problem: How much faster and cheaper can you move a package when robots do more of the work?

The company now has more than 1 million robots helping move packages through its fulfillment network, a robot army that dwarfs most of corporate America.

We’re talking more than four times as many robots per worker as the auto industry – a business built around automation.

Source: ARK Invest Big Ideas 2026 Report

In other words, the robots helping get an Amazon order to your doorstep aren't some distant AI promise. They're already working at a scale few companies can match.

Robots move the packages; shoppers still order them. Amazon draws about 80 million US web visits a day, steady with a year ago.

Amazon has spent decades making speed and convenience incredibly difficult for competitors to replicate. Robotics gives it another way to widen that advantage, moving more packages through its network with less work required for each one.

The industrial automation trend is still in its early stages, with robot costs falling as their capabilities improve. Amazon doesn't have to wait for that future to arrive. It already has more than 1 million robots at work inside its massive fulfillment network.

Stay bullish.