Here's something that may be of interest to followers of Tesla Motors founder, Elon Musk, and the ever-popular app-based transportation service provider, Uber. Recently, an earnings call made by Morgan Stanley analyst, Adam Jonas, to Musk drew a surprisingly uncharacteristic silence from the latter after he was questioned on a potential tie-up with the San Francisco-based transportation network company.
According to digital media site, Mashable, it was noted that an Uber board member, Steve Jurvetson, had made a "passing reference" to a comment by the firm's CEO, Travis Kalanick. The latter had stated that if Tesla Motors manufactured "500,000 autonomous cars by 2020, he'd buy them all."
During said teleconference, Jonas had proposed the question to Musk on whether or not "this a real business opportunity for Tesla" or will Musk opt to "cut out the middle man and sell on demand electric mobility services directly on its own platform?" The question resulted in a lengthy pause, after which Musk responded rather awkwardly by insisting that he shouldn't answer it.
Said response has resulted in plenty of speculation that Tesla Motors could be mulling over the idea of introducing an Uber-like platform to go head to head against other transport service providers. Further fuelling the rumoured rivalry is the fact that Uber is now known to be experimenting with autonomous vehicles - the firm has also acquired mapping technology and roughly 100 employees from Microsoft's Bing.
Whichever way this matter may end up, analysts are keen to stress that a tie-up between the two brands appear unlikely. Tesla Motors, under the helm of Musk, would insist on total control of such a project while the firm's CEO has stated that the carmaker is also in the midst of refining its own take on autonomous tech.
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