Sometimes students get the dreaded "see me" after turning in an essay. It rarely means their paper was a hit, or as expected.
That is essentially what Tesla is encountering following its highly anticipated, and ultimately disappointing, Robotaxi Day, held in Hollywood on Thursday night. The electric-vehicle company just didn't complete the assignment.
What investors wanted was to see a physical robotaxi and hear details about when and how Tesla would start offering a robotaxi service. The company provided only part of that.
There was a physical robotaxi on display, plus the unexpected unveiling of a "Robo-van" that can serve as a minibus or commercial vehicle. Those are both positives, but there wasn't enough detail about Tesla's self-driving technology, how it is improving, what regulators think of it, and how Tesla will make money from the service.
To be sure, there were some numbers offered. Tesla estimates that removing the driver could cut the cost of ride-hailing by 60% to 80%. But there were no market forecasts, no mentions of partnerships, and no financing details.
Don't forget that owning a fleet of 10,000 cars is costly. BofA analyst John Murphy, who had a more favorable view of the event than most, still suggested that Tesla might consider raising new equity capital to fund a large investment in robotaxis and robotics.
That is just a guess, made necessary partly because there was little in the way of detailed discussion. CEO Elon Musk was the only speaker, not counting a brief introduction by Tesla's head designer Franz von Holzhausen. Musk only talked for about 20 minutes, mainly reiterating prior talking points, before closing with "let's get the party started."
"While we are certainly believers in Tesla succeeding in autonomy and humanoid robotics," wrote Deutsche Bank analyst Edison Yu in a Friday report. "We generally came away underwhelmed by the lack of details disclosed and short length of the Cybercab demo ride."
He was present at the event. And while there were rides in self-driving taxis, they were in a tightly controlled space at a Hollywood movie studio. That just isn't all that difficult to do. The tests were more akin to a vision of the future than a demonstration of how vehicles would operate in the real world.
Without a more substantial presentation, Tesla's target for robotaxis service to begin in 2025 brought to mind Musk's repeated predictions that self-driving Teslas are a year away. He has made that call essentially every year since 2016.
There was a range of opinions among the roughly 60 analysts who cover Tesla stock, but the general view was that the entire event left them wanting more. Investors' reactions appear similar.
"I was underwhelmed," said Future Fund Active ETF co-founder and Tesla shareholder Gary Black. "The biggest issue was Elon didn't explain how Tesla gets from supervised [driver assistance products] to unsupervised autonomy."
Tesla shares dropped 8.8% on Friday, underperforming the S&P 500 by more than 9 percentage points. That is the worst underperformance for the day following the past 11 major Tesla events.
Tesla, to some extent, is responsible for the fact that expectations were high. The event was delayed about two months so that Musk could show more stuff. "[I] requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things," he tweeted on July 15.
An "other" thing might have been the Robo-van, but Tesla investors are trained to discount prototypes like the Cybercab and Robo-van. As Must has said many times, "Prototypes are easy, production is hard."
Overall, Robotaxi Day grades out to a C-minus.
The silver lining for investors is that the disappointment doesn't have to mean disaster for the stock. Barron's wrote recently that it is possible to justify $200 a share for Tesla's EV and power-storage businesses.
Anything above that is a bet tied to Musk. Shares closed at $217.80 on Friday.
Robotaxi Day might have been a flop, but Musk is still Musk. Part of this article was written using SpaceX's Starlink Wi-Fi at the EV showcase Electrify Expo on Long Island, New York. Tesla's Cybertruck was there and was clearly generating the most buzz.
Many things Musk envisions do eventually happen. Investors hope that is the case with Tesla's robotaxi service.
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