$Baidu (BIDU.US)$ $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ Robotaxi sounds like an Uber without the driver.
Awesome technology, but I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out what are the benefits of a driverless Uber.
Is the service any better for the passenger? Safer? Faster? More reliable?
Is it less less costly to operate a driverless vehicle? Lower labor cost , but higher capital investment. Liability is now on the operator.
Maybe more profitable for the operator, but more unemployment.

$Rivian Automotive (RIVN.US)$ is up 9.88% to $164.12 and has traded as high as $169.70 earlier in the session. Volume on RIVN is over 53M shares with several hours of trading still left.
Valuation today on Rivian moved to as high as $143B, which leaves the question of where analysts will go when the quiet period expires on December 20. The lead underwriters on the Rivian IPO were Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. BofA, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo and a host of others participated in the underwriting. While Sell-equivalent ratings from analysts are pretty much unheard of on the first day of a quiet period expiration, other EV stocks have seen a flurry of Neutral-equivalent ratings arrive due to frothy valuations. In some cases, shares of EV high-fliers cooled off when the ratings poured in.
Other potential catalysts arrive in the early part of 2022 when Rivian starts to make some public appearances at conferences and issues the company's first earnings/production reports. There have been many share price stumbles in the EV sector when production timelines were altered due to supply chain issues, chip shortages or other hiccups.
In regard to social media interest, Google searches on Rivian, RIVN and Rivian stock are in a downtrend after the peak during the IPO.
RIVN is still a top ticker on Reddit's WallStreetBets and Stocktwits in terms of mentions. On moomoo, more people follow one-week old Rivian than 47-year old $Foot Locker (FL.US)$.

EV stocks $Tesla (TSLA.US)$, $Rivian Automotive (RIVN.US)$, $Lucid Group (LCID.US)$ are smoking hot now. The stock market $Nasdaq Composite Index (.IXIC.US)$, $S&P 500 Index (.SPX.US)$ appears to be giving incredibly high valuations to EV stocks, whether the companies have proven themselves effective manufacturers or not. As with the EV stocks, there will be winners and losers, and these investments seem to belong to the more speculative portion of a stock portfolio. Understanding individual risk tolerance level is an important step in determining which EV stock is suitable for investors. $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ is the most established and successful EV company in the market. Whether $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ is overvalued or not is up for debate, the company seems to be going stronger, with higher revenue, stronger margins, as well as better earnings. There is also a good chance of $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ driving higher profits in the future. While $Tesla (TSLA.US)$ would still appear overvalued according to traditional metrics such as P/E ratio,  consistently generating positive net income is a step in the right direction. Relatively unproven but off to a fantastic start, $Rivian Automotive (RIVN.US)$ and $Lucid Group (LCID.US)$ appear to be high-risk, high-potential-reward growth stocks. No matter which EV stock investors choose, there is no denying that EV stocks have generally handily beaten the market, a trend that could very well continue in the future, as new product offerings, charging networks and aftermarket services continue to develop.
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