Tesla Robotaxi unveiling: expectations are low, could Tesla overdeliver?

Expectations appear to be quite low for Tesla’s Robotaxi unveiling on Thursday. Could Tesla surprise us?

On Thursday, Tesla is holding its ‘We, Robot’ event, which it previously described as its ‘Robotaxi unveiling’.

The automaker is expected to unveil an electric vehicle dedicated to self-driving. CEO Elon Musk has hinted that it will not have a steering wheel or pedals.

While this can be exciting on its own for some, those who have followed Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ (FSD) effort for years are a little more skeptical.

Tesla’s Supervised FSD has fallen short of even short-term goals stated by the CEO Elon Musk with the system still being at only about 120 miles between critical disengagement 3 years into the program:

It makes its long-term goal, which is for the system to work unsupervised as a robotaxi, even less believable.

Tesla fans and Wall Street analysts are trying to understand how this new dedicated robotaxi will fit into those plans, as Tesla has previously focused on making its existing consumer vehicles self-driving.

Wall Street Expectations

There’s not a ton of hype for the event on Wall Street.

Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi commented on the event:

“While Tesla is clearly focused on launching a robotaxi, Waymo and Cruise are already operating robotaxis in the U.S. today. The available data is clearly imperfect, but as of today Tesla appears to be lagging behind the leaders in the space.”

Guggenheim Securities Director of Automotive Equity Research Ronald Jewsikow thinks that Tesla would need to show a “credible path to robotaxi commercialization in the next 12 to 24 months” to satisfy the street and he doesn’t think that’s likely:

Ultimately, there are a lot of boxes that have to be checked, and we think that a real credible path to robotaxi commercialization in the next 12 to 24 months is extremely unlikely to come out of this event.

As for William Blair analyst Jed Dorsheimer, he expects a “sell the news” situation:

“I would not be surprised, and fully expect, the stock to pull back on the event. The trend for most of Tesla’s analyst days/big announcements is the stock runs into those as expectations rise…then there is a disappointment.”

Finally, Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley, who is undoubtedly the most bullish Wall Street analyst on Tesla, believes that the automaker will clearly separate the robotaxi/Cybercab program with its existing FSD:

“Potential initial commercial introduction could be late 2025 or 2026. It is our expectation that Tesla will offer a ‘dual’ approach with respect to autonomous ridesharing: (1) the fully autonomous app-based cybercab and (2) a ‘supervised’ autonomous/FSD rideshare service.”

While this is a possibility, it offers its own challenges as it might undermine its current strategy, which it has been selling to customers for 8 years.

Electrek’s Take

I think Jonas is probably right. I think the core of the event is going to be the Robotaxi/Cybercab unveiling.

We will see the actual vehicle, but the strategy for making it autonomous will be more interesting.

Is Tesla going to base the hardware on the same system found in its consumer vehicle? The answer to that question has great implications for its ability to deliver on its self-driving promises for millions of vehicles already on the road.

It could be the same, or similar, hardware, but will Tesla start using a mapped and geo-fenced approach to offer self-driving rideshares in some markets with its new Robotaxi in order to utilize it sooner?

I think that’s a real possibility, but that also has implications regarding Tesla’s current effort.

Due to Tesla’s resistance to releasing any data regarding its FSD program and the crowdsource data looking awful, I have doubts that Tesla can show anything game-changing on the self-driving front at the event.

Where Tesla could potentially overdeliver on expectations at the event is with new vehicles.

We know that Tesla has been developing two new, cheaper vehicles based on the Model 3 and Model Y, with plans to bring them to market as soon as next year.

If that’s the case, I would expect an unveiling pretty soon. Therefore, this event is a potential opportunity.

I think that could be more meaningful than a Cybercab, which would either deliver the same thing Waymo has been doing for years or be dependent on Tesla’s FSD progress, which doesn’t seem capable of delivering anything that is not supervised for a few more years.