Elon Musk unveiled Tesla‘s highly anticipated self-driving taxi at a flashy event that was light on specifics, leaving investors questioning how the carmaker expects to achieve its ambitious goals.
The chief executive officer showed off prototypes of a slick two-door sedan called the Cybercab late on Thursday, along with a van concept and an updated version of Tesla’s humanoid robot.The robotaxi – which has no steering wheel or pedals – could cost less than $30,000 and “probably” will go into production in 2026, Musk said.
The product launch, held on a movie studio lot near Los Angeles, didn’t address how Tesla will make the leap from selling advanced driver-assistance features to fully autonomous vehicles. Musk’s presentation lacked technical details and glossed over topics including regulation or whether the company will own and operate its own fleet of Cybercabs.
As Jefferies analysts put it, Tesla’s robotaxi appears “toothless.” The underwhelming event sent Tesla’s shares down 9.3% on Friday in New York, wiping out $69 billion of market value in the biggest intraday decline in more than two months. The stock had soared almost 70% since mid-April, largely in anticipation of the event.
Tesla has a track record of blowing past timelines Musk has offered for all manner of future products and has had a particularly difficult time following through on his self-driving forecasts. The CEO told investors in 2019 that Tesla would have more than 1 million robotaxis on the road by the following year. The company hasn’t deployed a single autonomous vehicle in the years since.
“The only specific was the $30,000 for a Cybercab,” said Nancy Tengler, the chief executive officer of Laffer Tengler Investments and a Tesla investor who attended the event. “The concepts were all grand. Is the idea super cool? Absolutely.”
Tesla has for years been selling a suite of features it’s marketed as Full Self-Driving, or FSD, that require constant supervision and don’t make its vehicles autonomous.Musk said Thursday the company expects to be able to allow Model 3 and Model Y owners in Texas and California to no longer need to supervise those features sometime next year.
Among the other reveals at the event were a futuristic-looking Robovan concept that Musk said could transport as many as 20 people, plus new versions of the humanoid robot, called Optimus. While the CEO offered a rough sense of when the Cybercab may be ready, he didn’t say when Tesla will make the Robovan.
