8 hours ago
Don't expect to see Tesla robotaxis everywhere just yet
Tesla's (TSLA) robotaxis are expected to hit the street this weekend in Austin, Texas. Stifel NextGen Transport analyst Stephen Gengaro says that investors shouldn't expect to see a slew of robotaxis hitting the roads across America just yet. Find out why in the video above.
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Tesla is set to roll out their Robotaxis this weekend, and our next guest today says a successful launch is essential for Tesla to validate the company's long-term pivot toward autonomous mobility.
For more, let's welcome in now Stephen Genero, Stephel NextGen transport analyst.
Steven, it's good to see you.
So, uh, Tesla's robotaxi service rolling out this weekend there in Texas.
Steven, what, what do you expect to see and hear and how excited should investors be for this moment?
Yeah, hi Josh, and thanks for having me again.
So when we think about Tesla in general, right, the RoboTaxi initiative and the full self-driving initiative are critical long term value drivers of the company, and we've talked a lot about that in research notes.
When we think about this weekend, I mean, we think this is going to be a slow process, right?
This morning you already had some vendors and some, some.
A folks, I think there were local local representatives down in Texas wanting to sort of delay the launch till more safety can be checked.
But you know this is going to be a slow process.
You're probably going to see, you're expected to see 10 or 20 vehicles on the road model wise that are being very closely monitored by Tesla.
So this is, you know, a very slow process, but it is obviously, you know, the first step.
Something which can be much, much larger over time.
And in terms of how, how it expands from here, Stephen, here was Dan Eyes or Wedbush.
We know Dan Bull of bulls on Tesla, told his clients that he said, while the Austin launch will start off small with roughly 20 Moo Y vehicles, he says, it's our view.
Tesla will launch and scale its Rebo Taxi service to roughly 25 cities in the US over the next year.
What do you make of that?
Well, it's, I think the first thing that we have to think about, Josh, is, is safety, right?
And I think one of the risks to, to the launch is obviously the safety of, of the autonomous driving system and You know, if, if I get in an accident on, on my way to work on Monday, and nobody's going to know or care if a robotaxi, you know, bumps into a fire hydrant, it's going to be in every news feed probably in the world, right?
So there has to be a really careful focus on safety.
So when we think about, you know, the next steps from here.
I do think you're going to see it roll out, you know, over, over the next 2 to 3 quarters in multiple cities in the US, you know, I think it's going to be measured.
I think it's going to be a slow process.
I mean, when, when we think about the importance of it to Tesla, I don't care that much if it's in 3 cities or 5. or seven cities and you know, by December 30th first, what I care is that if there's a clean launch, it goes smoothly and the safety record is extremely high.
And I think, I think Tesla understands that.
So while we do build in these significant long term upside potentials for the company and the RoboTaxi is obviously a big part of our evaluation, uh, I think the near term, you know, the focus on safety is more important than how many vehicles are actually out there.
