Where Morgan Stanley thinks autonomous taxis will be in 2032

Recently we laid out the current autonomous ride-share landscape, which is mostly a battle between Google’s Waymo and Tesla. According to a new report from Morgan Stanley’s research team that looks forward to the next half decade, robotaxis’ future — while expected to grow rapidly — might not be so different.

In 2032, the Morgan Stanley research team expects Waymo and Tesla to command about 70% (~38% and ~29%, respectively) of autonomous miles driven in the US.

In turn, the firm believes autonomous miles will represent about 30% of all ride-share miles in the US.

Looking at that from the perspective of trips and the apps that controls them, and using the current partnership mix, Uber and Lyft will capture just about 30% of all AV trips, down from basically controlling the entire ride-share market now.

As these companies scale their autonomous efforts and improve their tech, costs are widely expected to decline. Morgan Stanley believes cost per mile for Waymo, which is currently nearly double Tesla’s cost, will drop from $1.43 to $0.99 by 2028. Meanwhile, the cost per mile for Tesla ride-sharing will dip below the cost of car ownership, which is growing.

Much of the future of ride-sharing, according to Morgan Stanley, hinges on whether or not robotaxis create more demand or take from current demand.

“AV incrementality remains critical for Uber/Lyft, who will likely lose significant share of the rideshare industry as autonomous platform disruption grows,” the researchers wrote.