Wall Street's early reaction to Elon Musk's robotaxi reveal? Disappointment.
Shares in Tesla fell roughly 6% in premarket trading Friday following an event that was heavier on showbiz but lighter on business than investors had hoped after months of buildup. The overnight stock drop points to about a $40 billion slump in the electric-car maker's valuation at the open.
Tesla on Thursday evening revealed a two-seat vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals at a tightly choreographed product launch in Los Angeles.
Following a strategic pivot toward robotics and autonomy this year, Musk had billed the event as Tesla's most significant since the launch of its benchmark-setting Model 3 in 2017. For investors, a move into robotaxis offers one way to justify Tesla's $763 billion market value. After a rally in the stock in anticipation of the event, Musk's company is worth almost three times as much as Toyota, the world's best-selling car maker.
"Investors we spoke to at the event thought the event was light of real numbers and timelines. These typically come at Tesla events. This one seemed focused on branding and marketing Tesla's vision," said Tom Narayan, an analyst at Royal Bank of Canada.
In a roughly half-hour presentation, Musk painted a picture of a green, sunny future in which autonomous vehicles eliminate parking lots and rush-hour traffic. Among the few concrete details were that Tesla's Cybercab would enter production in 2026 and sell for less than $30,000.
To achieve those goals, Tesla will have to master two formidable technical challenges: cutting the production cost of electric vehicles, and making them drive themselves without human intervention to a safety level capable of satisfying risk-averse regulators. Musk didn't give his guests at the robotaxi event evidence of progress on either score.
The most advanced version of Tesla's current driver-automation software, which it calls "full-self driving (supervised)," requires the attention of a human driver as a backup. Musk said Thursday that an unsupervised version of FSD would be released in California and Texas next year. The Tesla chief executive has a decadelong record of missing such deadlines, leading to skepticism from analysts.
"Making the leap from where we are today to full autonomy (particularly through unsupervised vehicles with zero steering or pedals) is so gargantuan, technology-wise, that it feels overly ambitious in such a short period of time," wrote Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at car-shopping site Edmunds.
Those expecting hints about the progress of a lower-cost Tesla that does include a driving wheel and pedals were also left frustrated. The company still hasn't previewed the model, which Musk in July said would come out next year.
"We were disappointed by the lack of detail regarding Tesla's near-term product road map," wrote CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson.