Tesla Shares closed down nearly 9% on Friday after the electrical vehicle maker's long-awaited robotaxi event didn’t impress investors.
CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Cybercab self-driving concept automobile — a low-slung, silver two-seater without steering wheels or pedals — at the corporate's “We, Robot” event on Thursday evening, praising his company's ambitions to create a fleet of autonomous vehicles and robots.
Musk said the corporate hopes to supply the Cybercab before 2027, but gave no details about where the cars shall be manufactured. He said consumers could buy a Tesla Cybercab for a price under $30,000.
He also said he expects Tesla to introduce “unsupervised FSD” in the corporate's Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles in Texas and California next 12 months. FSD, which stands for Full Self-Driving, is Tesla's premium driver assistance system, available today in a “supervised” version for Tesla electric vehicles.
The technology still requires a human driver on the wheel, able to steer or brake at any time.
Tesla shares closed at $217.80 on Friday, down 12% year-to-date and 17% over the past 12 months.
“The momentum before the event is waning”
In addition to the Cybercab, Musk also announced plans to supply an autonomous, electric Robovan that may carry as much as 20 people or be used to move goods. He said it can be “a solution for high density,” resembling transporting a sports team.
After the incident, analysts at Jeffries released a note titled “We are underwhelmed.”
Analysts at Barclays said the revelations didn’t highlight near-term opportunities for Tesla, but as an alternative highlighted Musk's vision of a completely autonomous driving future.
“As expected, like previous Tesla product launches, the event was light on details and instead emphasized the vision underlying Tesla's AI/AV growth efforts [autonomous vehicles]“Barclays analysts wrote.
They added that the public had received “no short-term updates on FSD progress or data reflecting improvements in the system.”
Analysts at Piper Sandler wrote in a report that “most commercial-oriented companies will not be excited about the introduction of robo-taxis.”
“We would not be surprised to see the stock sell off in the coming weeks as pre-event momentum fades,” the analysts wrote.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, said Musk failed to say on the event that Tesla was a synthetic intelligence company. The analysts noted that Musk didn’t provide details about improvements to Tesla's FSD system or comment on rumors about plans for collaboration between Tesla and xAI, Musk's AI company.
The event “overall disappointed expectations in a number of areas: a lack of data on the rate of change in FSD/technology, the economics of ride-sharing, and go-to-market strategy,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.
“We were overall disappointed with the content and details of the presentation,” they added. “Therefore, we expect TSLA to be under pressure following the event.”
What is obvious after the event is that it can be years before Tesla has a fleet of self-driving cars on public roads, and regulators can have to handle quite a few concerns in regards to the safety features built into the vehicles.
Paull Miller, an analyst at Forrester, told CNBC in an email that a $30,000 cybercab wouldn’t be available anytime soon.
“It will be extremely difficult for Tesla to offer a new vehicle at this price within this time frame,” Miller said. “Economies of scale could ultimately allow the company to reduce costs to around $30,000. Without external subsidies or Tesla making a loss on every vehicle, it doesn’t seem plausible to come to market at anywhere near that price this decade.”
alphabet Waymo, which has been offering its robotaxi service to most of the people since June, is among the many few firms which have successfully introduced self-driving cars to public roads.
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