👀 Waymo problems for Tesla

Tesla has staked its autonomous driving future on a relatively cheap solution: using cameras alone rather than a combination with the much more expensive lidar that its competitor, Google’s Waymo, employs to operate its self-driving cars. 

It’s a stance that puts Tesla at odds with most Americans, new data shows.

• According to new survey data from Electric Vehicle Intelligence Report, some 70% of Americans said in August that autonomous vehicles should employ both cameras and lidar, while 71% said the government should require companies to use both.

• Just 3% of respondents chose “autonomous vehicles should only use cameras” as the answer closest to their view. Tesla CEO Elon Musk would appear to be among them.

• That said, the vast majority of Americans also say they wouldn’t consider riding in a robotaxi in the first place, with 41% saying they’d never consider it and another 28% saying they are not considering it at this time.

Tesla is hoping that by keeping costs low for its cars, which are just a fraction of the price of Waymo’s, it will be able to scale its autonomous ambitions much more quickly and cheaply, since it says pretty much any of its cars on the road could potentially be self-driving with updated software.

The Takeaway

Musk earlier this year predicted “millions of Teslas operating autonomously” by the end of next year. So far Tesla’s Austin robotaxi program, which doesn’t have a driver but does have a safety monitor sitting in the passenger seat, has about 30 autonomous cars on the road, while Waymo operates closer to 2,000.

Read more.

• The trade-down trade: Superstrong numbers from a few unsexy off-price retailers this earnings season (Kohl’s, Burlington Stores, Five Below, etc.) seem to suggest that consumers are shopping for lower-priced options rather than paying premium prices. As this chart shows, mentions of “trading down” in large-cap companies’ earnings calls are starting to spike. Read why these bargain retailers could be a potential trade opportunity during a high-inflation, soft-growth economy.

• Old people these days just don’t want to work anymore: While workers across all age groups left the job market during Covid, the 55 and older group never went back. This mass exit was first triggered by what economists call “excess retirements” from both lower-income workers pushed out by job losses and wealthier baby boomers riding the 2020-21 asset boom. For employees who aren’t retired yet, their expected retirement age is increasingly falling, as this chart shows.

The day after Nvidia reported earnings, it traded 15x the volume of the FTSE 100

But it wasn’t just Nvidia: the chip designer was one of 16 US stocks to trade more than the UK’s flagship index, including this database software company that isn’t even in the S&P 500.

Check out this interactive chart that puts Nvidia’s trading volume into perspective.

• Like Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum, Opendoor’s new interim leader, Shrisha Radhakrishna, is actively engaging with its retail investors, the “$OPEN Army”

• Meta Superintelligence Labs is off to a rocky start

• Spirit Airlines is reportedly headed for its second bankruptcy in a year

• “KPop Demon Hunters” just surpassed these blockbusters to become Netflix’s most watched film

• Elon Musk is suing a former xAI employee, alleging that he stole trade secrets before leaving for a job at OpenAI

• Celsius hit a 52-week high on Friday after Pepsi boosted its stake in the caffeine peddler