Tesla ( TSLA ) shares fell after Cybercab robotaxi unveiled

Shares of electric vehicle manufacturers Tesla tumbled 9% on Friday morning after the company’s long-awaited robotaxi event – where CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Cybercab self-driving car concept – failed to impress investors.

Musk revealed Tesla’s Cybercab vehicle concept – a low, silver two-seater, without a steering wheel or pedals – on Friday night, at the company’s “We, Robot” event, where it revealed its ambitions to create a fleet of autonomous vehicles and robots.

The plan is for the car to drive autonomously at launch. Musk said the company hopes to produce the Cybercab before 2027, but did not say where the car would be produced. He said consumers can buy a Tesla Cybercab for less than $30,000.

He also said that Tesla will have “unsupervised FSD” and run in Texas and California next year in electric vehicles Model 3 and Model Y. FSD, which stands for Full Self-Driving, which is Tesla’s premium driver assistance system, is available now in the version “supervised” for Tesla electric vehicles.

Technology still requires a human driver at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any moment.

Reacting to Thursday’s event, analysts at Barclays said the revelation failed to highlight the imminent opportunity for Tesla, instead prioritizing Musk’s vision for an autonomous driving future.

“As expected, as before the announced Tesla products, the event was light on details, and instead emphasized the vision that supports Tesla’s growth efforts in AI / AV (autonomous vehicles),” wrote Barclays US car & mobility team in an early note. Friday.

“However, there are no updates that indicate a close opportunity. Tesla did not show the low-cost model that is planned for production in 1H’25,” he added. “We have also received no updates on the progress of the FSD, or any data showing improvements in the system.”

Piper Sandler analysts said in a separate Friday note that “the most commerce-oriented companies will be overwhelmed by the robo-taxi unveiling.”

“We wouldn’t be surprised if stocks sell off in the coming weeks, as pre-event momentum fizzles,” the investment bank’s analysts said in a note.

Morgan Stanley, meanwhile, suggested Musk failed to make the case that Tesla was an AI company during the event. The bank’s analysts noted that Musk did not mention any details about the improvement of Tesla’s FSD system, nor did the billionaire elaborate on the rumored plans for a relationship between Tesla and xAI, Musk’s AI company. Musk previously denied the report.

The event “overall expectations are disappointing in several areas: lack of data about the rate-of-change in FSD/tech, ride-share economy and Go-to-market strategy,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note on Friday.

“We were generally disappointed with the substance and detail of the presentation. So, we expect TSLA to be under pressure after the event,” he added.

It is thought to take several years before self-driving cars become a mainstream reality on public roads, with regulators concerned about the safety features fitted to such vehicles.

Among the few companies that have successfully launched self-driving cars on public roads is Google’s Waymo, which has been offering robotaxi services to the general public since June.

— CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Michael Bloom contributed to this report