Ely, NV

Original

This is a planning tool, not a prediction. Of the 78 numbers behind a season in Ely, 24 are published figures, 32 are worked out from published figures, and 22 are our own estimates. 41 of them were read straight out of a federal file that covers every city in the country, so there was no citation to trust and no page to misread. You can change any of them. Your result is only as good as the numbers you agree with.

How long until you have your $10,000 back

1.4 months

After 90 days the project is worth

$15,117

Against the $10,000 you put in

+$5,117

This projects the first 90 days forward in a straight line. Early months carry start-up drag, so later ones may run better. It is a direction, not a date.

Where the money goes on day one

The project is behind before the car turns a wheel. That is true in every town on this list, and it is the hole the months above are measured against.

You put in$10,000

Hard costs, paid once

Down payment on a $28,900 car -$2,900

Installing home charging -$2,250

Permits and onboardingplaceholder -$650

Money left to operate on$4,200

Plus the car equity. You paid $28,900, but it would only fetch $27,166 the moment it is yours, and you owe $26,000 of that +$1,166

What the project is worth on day one$5,366

The project is $4,634 down before the first fare: $2,900 genuinely spent, and $1,734 that vanished the moment the car stopped being new.

Two honest caveats. The permit figure is marked placeholder because the model invents it — the obligation is real, the amount is not researched. And nothing here counts sales tax, excise, title or registration on the purchase, which vary by state and this model does not yet carry, so every figure is a best case.

What comes off every fare before you see it

The rider pays100%

The network takesour estimate −30%

Reaches the business70%

That 30% comes off the top — before energy, cleaning, insurance, the depot or the loan payment. Every figure on this page is already after it.

Tesla has published no owner-operator revenue share for Robotaxi, anywhere, so this is an expectation rather than a reported figure. 30% is roughly what the established ride-hail platforms take and what people following the rollout broadly expect. It is the largest single lever in the whole model: at 25% instead, the same season leaves about 7% more in your hand — more than any driving decision you can make. Fares also settle 7 days after they are earned.

People

3,946

White Pine County

Rides a day

122

all operators, town-wide

Airport

118.3 mi

worked out

Fast charging

$0.66

per kWh, public

Why this town is in the game

Bought to test whether a MINOR magnet, a highway and casinos, is enough.

What this row rests on

78 numbers describe this town. Every one of them says where it came from.

24 published by somebody else 32 worked out from those 22 our own estimates

Citations we went back and checked

8 held / 3 failed

Anything that failed was demoted to an estimate and says so.

What we could not find out

visitor_air_arrival_share: the nearest commercial airport is 118 miles away, past the 35-mile line at which it stops being this town's airport, so its boardings were NOT divided by this town's visitors -- doing so would have handed a small town a large airport's traffic
visitor_air_arrival_share: could not be built, so visitors are counted as arriving by road and the visitor stream is a floor
visitor_airport_ridehail_share: the panel's own draws disagreed by 2.0x (0.05, 0.05, 0.1, 0.08, 0.08), so this component is not settled and the range on rides per day is wide because of it
rides_per_day: the five named sources were checked and none publishes a trip count for this city, so the estimate stands on its own arithmetic

Some of the numbers, and where they came from

A sample. The whole pack is in the data API.

Rides a day, whole townour estimate122 rides/day

Total app-hailed trips a day across every operator in the city -- the pool your fleet competes for a share of, not the number you will get. no published figure we could verify

Average paid trip lengthour estimate2.5 miles

Ely’s own land area (7.626 sq mi) is the strongest local geography; a town that small has typical in-city hops of about two to three miles, with the airport and East Ely railway at the outer edge. no published figure we could verify

Passengers boarding a yearpublished12,881 enplanements/year

FAA calendar year 2024 ENPLANEMENTS -- passengers BOARDING, which is about half of the arrivals-plus-departures figure an airport press release quotes. This is the federal count, read out of the FAA's own file. FAA, CY2024 Passenger Boarding (Enplanement) Data for U.S. Airports

Overnight electricityworked out0.085 $/kWh

Mt. Wheeler Power publishes no time-of-use energy tariff a small operator could take; this is the EIA-861 2024 bundled residential average applied to midnight–06:00 as an imposed flat shape.

Evening electricityworked out0.085 $/kWh

Same imposed flat shape; 16:00–midnight has no higher published energy charge for a small operator.

Insurance on each car after the firstworked out332 $/month

What each additional vehicle adds to the premium. Lower than the first car because a fleet policy spreads the administrative part of a premium across the vehicles while the risk part scales with them -- which is part of why growing is the way out of the trap.

A small commercial bay, per monthworked out857 $/month

This is a derivation, not a local quote: a national published figure scaled by a published local index. Nobody publishes what a 1,500 square foot bay lets for in a town this size, because small commercial bays let privately, one handshake at a time, and no ind

A full interior cleanworked out74 $

This is a derivation, not a local quote: a national published figure scaled by a published local index. Nobody publishes a full interior detail in a town this size, because it is a manual service: keeping a price list current is work, and the price is whatever

Named demand generatorsour estimate

William Bee Ririe Hospital (25 beds); GBC Ely Center; Ely State Prison (1,183 capacity, 406 staff, 9 mi N); Robinson Nevada Mining (~700 at Ruth); Hotel Nevada; Nevada Northern Railway

Lists the named generators that actually move people in and around Ely; mine and prison sit just outside city limits but dominate county employment. no published figure we could verify

Independently reported paid ridesour estimate0 trips/year

No published taxi or TNC trip count exists for Ely or White Pine County; zero is an audited absence, not a claim that zero rides occur. no published figure we could verify

Researched 2026-09-09 on pipeline 2.1.0. Measured on sim 1.5.0, 12 seeds, median reported. A result is only comparable to another from the same sim version.