Tesla is expected to unveil its robotaxi at an event on October 10. Tesla (TSLA) shares are flat year to date as EV demand in the US slows and competition in China heats up.

The stock is a top holding in the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK), which is down about 11% so far in 2024. Ark Invest CEO and CIO Cathie Wood says of the upcoming event, "Tesla is giving us great comfort, believe it or not, because we've done the research. I don't think a lot of analysts have done the kind of research on autonomous mobility that we have. We have a longer investment time horizon. That's why we've done the research." Wood thinks analysts will have to upwardly revise their estimates for what a robotaxi means for Tesla's bottom line, stating that she sees it as "a software as a service model with 80% gross margins plus on that side of the model, as opposed to 15 to 30% margins on the EV side."

In the interview with Yahoo Finance, Wood explains why she is bullish on Tesla's robotaxi: "This is not if, it is when for Tesla. And for Tesla, it's also how quickly will they roll out? How quickly will they go national, or even global, with their aspirations? As you know, Elon thinks in a very big way and he has positioned Tesla to win the lion's share of this market. And this AI project is a winner-take-most project. The company that gets people from point A to point B the fastest, the safest, with as little wait time as possible is going to win the lion's share of the market."

Be sure to check out the full interview with Ark Invest's Cathie Wood.

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This post was written by Stephanie Mikulich.