Tesla Cybercab Arrives to Mixed Reviews and a Falling Stock

Coming into Friday trading, Tesla stock was down 16% year to date and up 11% over the past 12 months. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Key Points

• Tesla stock fell in early trading on Friday following the launch of its purpose-built Cybercab robo-taxi on Thursday.
• Tesla did not livestream the launch event or provide details on how many Cybercabs will be deployed and where.
• Baird analyst Ben Kallo noted that Tesla recently registered 45 Cybercabs with the Texas DMV and is looking for robo-taxi partners.

The Cybercab has finally arrived, with less fanfare than investors are used to. Tesla stock dropped after the company’s launch event on Thursday.

Tesla teased a Cybercab event weeks ago, signaling the introduction of its purpose-built robo-taxis, with no pedals or steering wheel.

The launch took place and Tesla says Cybercab rides open to the public on Friday. But Tesla didn’t livestream the event or provide any details.

That might have been a disappointment. Tesla stock was down 3.4% at $363.78 in premarket trading, while S&P 500 futures were up 0.2% and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were off 0.3%.

Anticipation for the launch was high. Shares jumped 5.4% on Thursday. Coming into Friday trading, Tesla stock was up almost 8% for the week.

Now, investors can look for rides from attendees on X and YouTube.

A few details can be gleaned from videos. SpaceX’s AI assistant Grok is installed in the Cybercabs, which are also using SpaceX’s broadband product Starlink. The cars might also be running version 15 of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software. Tesla vehicles on roads are running version 14 today. Version 15 is expected to be released in the coming months.

Still, details about how many Cybercabs will be in service and where aren’t available. Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Baird analyst Ben Kallo called the launch a “significant milestone” in a Thursday report, noting that 45 Cybercabs were recently registered with the Texas DMV. He also pointed out that Tesla is looking for robo-taxi partners. The EV maker appears to be willing to sell Cybercabs to people who want to be part of the Tesla robo-taxi network.

One Global ETF co-founder Gary Black called the event a bust. “The launch offered little detail, and key questions remained unanswered following the event, including how many vehicles the company plans to deploy,” he wrote on X.

Barclays analyst Dan Levy agrees that there was “limited” new information, with no financial targets given, but added in a Friday report that the launch reinforced the narrative around Tesla stock. Overall, he called the event “in-line” with expectations.

Livestreamed or not, Tesla’s Cybercab era has begun. That is a positive. A lot is riding on robo-taxis. Americans drive more than three trillion miles annually, and driverless cars could reshape personal transportation by making it cheaper to hail a cab than own a car. That shift is one reason that Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco, for instance, values Tesla’s self-driving technologies at roughly $1 trillion.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@barrons.com.

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