TSLA: Sell & Exit before it's Too Late?
In less than 1.5 months, $Tesla Motors(TSLA)$ is due to unveil its robottaxi - proof of concept.
As mentioned in my past post, I do not see a finished product being rolled out or implemented because Mr CEO has not even applied for the autonomous driving permit.
All eyes are on him (now) to see if his eleventh hour postpone of the August robotaxis unveiling will be worth the wait.
If the below post is but anything to base your judgement & anticipation on - then you have better hold on tight to your seat for it is going to be a bumpy ride.
Three times in the past 4 months, Truist Securities, Technology analyst - William Stein, has taken Elon Musk up on his invitation to try the latest versions of Tesla vaunted “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) system.
A Tesla EV equipped with the technology (the company says), can travel from point to point with little human intervention.
Yet each time Stein drove one of the cars, he said, the vehicle made unsafe or illegal maneuvers.
His most recent test-drive early in August 2024 has left his 16-year-old son, who accompanied him, “terrified.”
Stein’s experiences, along with a Seattle-area Tesla crash involving FSD that killed a motorcyclist in April 2024, have drawn the attention of federal regulators.
They have already been investigating Tesla’s automated driving systems for > 2 years because of dozens of crashes that raised safety concerns.
The problems have led people who monitor autonomous vehicles to become more skeptical that Tesla’s automated system will ever be able to operate safely on a widespread scale.
Stein says he doubts Tesla is even close to deploying a fleet of autonomous robotaxis by 2025 as Musk has predicted it will.
The latest incidents come at a pivotal time for Tesla.
Musk has told investors it’s possible that Full Self-Driving will be able to operate more safely than human drivers by the end of 2024, if not 2025.
And in less than 2 months, the company is scheduled to unveil a vehicle built expressly to be a robotaxi.
For Tesla to put robotaxis on the road, Musk has said the company will show regulators that the system can drive more safely than humans.
Under federal rules, the Teslas would have to meet national standards for vehicle safety.
Musk has released data showing miles driven per crash, but only for Tesla's less-sophisticated Autopilot system.
Safety experts say the data is invalid because:
It counts only serious crashes with air bag deployment.
It does not show how often human drivers had to take over to avoid a collision.
Full Self-Driving is being used on public roads by roughly 500,000 Tesla owners, slightly more than one in five Teslas (or 20%) in use today.
Most of them paid $8,000 or more for the optional system.
Tesla has cautioned that cars equipped with the system cannot actually drive themselves and that motorists must be ready at all times to intervene if necessary.
(note: above qualifier was only inserted into marketing materials and videos after numerous life-causing accidents have occurred and was part of an out of the court settlement, if not mistaken)
Tesla also says it tracks each driver’s behavior and will suspend their ability to use FSD if they don't properly monitor the system.
Recently, the company began calling the system “Full Self-Driving” (Supervised).
Musk, who has acknowledged that his past predictions (meaning “lies”) for the use of autonomous driving proved too optimistic.
Just for the record, in 2019 Mr CEO, promised a fleet of autonomous vehicles by the end of 2020.
Five years on, many who follow the technology say they doubt it can work across the US as promised.
According to Center for Auto Safety, Executive director, Michael Brooks — it’s not even close, and it’s not going to be next year, 2025.
The EV Stein drove was a Tesla Model 3.
He picked it up at a Tesla showroom in Westchester County, north of New York City.
The Model 3 (Tesla's lowest-price vehicle) was equipped with the latest FSD software.
Musk says the software now uses artificial intelligence to help control steering and pedals.
Stein recount of the driving experiences:
During his ride, the Model 3 felt smooth and more human-like than past versions did.
However in less than 10 miles of auto driving, the EV made a left turn from a through lane while running a red light.
“That was stunning," he said (not in a good way, mind you).
He did not take control of the car because (a) there was little traffic and (b) the maneuver did not seem dangerous.
Later on, though, the car drove down the middle of a parkway, straddling two lanes that carry traffic in the same direction and this time, he intervened.
Stein’s overall verdict:
The latest version of FSD does not “solve autonomy” as Musk has predicted.
Nor does it appear to approach “robotaxi capabilities.”
In past 2 earlier test drives he undertook in April & July, Tesla vehicles also surprised him with unsafe moves.
Thinks Tesla will eventually make money off its driving technology.
Does not foresee a robotaxi with no driver and a passenger in the back seat in the near future.
He predicted it will be significantly delayed or limited in where it can travel.
There's often a significant gap, between what Musk says and what is likely to happen.
Suggested investors “honestly” assess whether Tesla's self-driving technology is effective in the real world.
At article publishing time, Tesla has not responded to messages seeking a comment.
To be sure, many Tesla fans have posted videos on social media showing their cars driving themselves without humans taking control.
Videos, of course, do not show how the system performs over time.
Equally, many others have posted videos showing dangerous behavior.
Academic Feedback.
(1) Princeton University, Head of autonomous vehicle studies - Alain Kornhauser.
He drove a Tesla borrowed from a friend for 2 weeks and found that it consistently spotted pedestrians and detected other drivers.
While it performs well most of the time, Kornhauser said he had to take control when the Tesla has made moves that scared him.
He warns that Full Self-Driving is not ready to be left without human supervision in all locations.
“This thing (Tesla) is not at a point where it can go anywhere”, Kornhauser concluded.
Kornhauser said he does think the system could work autonomously in smaller areas of a city where detailed maps help guide the vehicles.
He wonders why Musk does not start by offering rides on a smaller scale.
“People could really use the mobility that this could provide,” he said.
For years, experts have warned that Tesla's system of cameras and computers is not always able to spot objects and determine what they are.
Cameras cannot always see in bad weather and darkness.
Most other autonomous robotaxi companies, such as $Alphabet(GOOG)$ Waymo and $General Motors(GM)$ Cruise, combine cameras with radar and laser sensors.
(2) George Mason University, Professor of Engineering & Computing - Missy Cummings.
If you can't see the world correctly, you can't plan and move and actuate to the world correctly.
Cars can't do it with vision only.
Even those EVs equipped with laser and radar can't always drive reliably yet, raising safety questions about Waymo and Cruise. (Representatives for Waymo and Cruise declined to comment.)
(3) Carnegie Mellon University, Professor who studies autonomous vehicle safety - Phil Koopman.
It will be many years before autonomous vehicles that operate solely on artificial intelligence will be able to handle all real-world situations.
Machine learning has no common sense and learns narrowly from a huge number of examples.
If the computer driver gets into a situation it has not been taught about, it is prone to crashing.
Death case study.
Last April in Snohomish County, Washington, near Seattle, a Tesla using FSD hit and killed a motorcyclist, authorities said.
The Tesla driver, who has not been charged, told authorities that he was using FSD while looking at his phone when the car rear-ended the motorcyclist.
The motorcyclist was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities reported.
The agency said it's evaluating information on the fatal crash from Tesla and law enforcement officials.
It also says it's aware of Stein’s experience with FSD.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency within US Dept of Transportation:
Is investigating whether a Tesla recall earlier this year, which was intended to bolster its automated vehicle driver monitoring system, actually succeeded.
It also pushed Tesla to recall FSD in 2023 because, in “certain rare circumstances” the FSD disobey some traffic laws, raising the risk of a crash.
Has declined to confirm, if it has finished evaluating whether the recall accomplished its mission.
Tesla EV sales have faltered for the past several months despite price cuts.
Mr Musk has told investors that they should view the company more as a robotics & artificial intelligence business than a car company.
Yet Tesla has been working on FSD since at least 2015.
During recent earnings conference in July, Mr CEO has recommended anyone who does not believe that Tesla will solve vehicle autonomy, should not hold Tesla stock.
My viewpoints: (mine only)
If one uses commonsense, one will know coming October review remains a marketing ploy.
Both Waymo and Cruise are already in operations and earning revenue for quite some time.
How does Tesla’s robotaxi without real life experiences match that ?
Whats more, it does not even have permits from US regulators to operate its so-called fleet of robotaxi ?
It is really misleading to release data showing miles driven per crash (for Tesla's Autopilot system) when it is pushing for FSD.
It is really amateurish of Mr CEO playing reverse physchology by requesting those who do not believed in Tesla to sell their shares during its quarterly earnings conference.
It is hoped that US regulator NHTSA will do a thorough probe into all reported and hopefully “unreported” incidences.
This is necessary when real human lives are at stake.
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Do you think Tesla will be able to hand in a stellar Q3 2024 earnings report card before its robotaxi unveil, given its dwindling sales ?
Do you think Tesla’s robotaxi unveil will be a success and will be revenue generating immediately after October 2024 reveal ?
Do you think Tesla’s stock price will skyrocket immediately after October unveil or will it tank when investors realized that it is all Marketing smoke screen with production roll out in 2025 or even later ?
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