Musk announced that it would launch a long-promised robotaxi (Robotaxi) on August 8. This news instantly detonated Wall Street, drove Tesla's stock price to rise, and boosted investors' confidence to a certain extent.

However, many analysts believe that the release of RoboTaxi on August 8 is a big cake drawn by Musk for stock prices. At the 2019 Autonomous Driving Day event, Musk publicly stated that Tesla would establish its own fully automated Robotaxi fleet, and today, five years later, Musk's vision has not been realized.

On April 13, Philip Koopman, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, said bluntly that it will be many years before fully automated driving technology is achieved. “Currently, even industry-leading Waymo and Cruise still have problems with their autonomous vehicles, and there is still a long way to go until completely driverless.”

Koopman believes that implementing Robotaxi means that people inside the vehicle can ensure vehicle safety without intervention. “To do this, no matter what software is in the car, it has to be almost perfect. Obviously, FSD (fully automated driving) hasn't reached this level yet, and a strong statement requires strong evidence, but where is the evidence now? I didn't see it.”

Vicki Bryan, founder and CEO of bond analysis company Bond Angle LLC, believes that at least Model 2 is possible, while RoboTaxi is not. “I don't think Tesla has the technology to turn existing Tesla cars into autonomous cars. Although Musk has promised to achieve this goal for many years, this is unlikely to happen now.”

According to media analysts, while Tesla is facing many business challenges, Musk's move to rely on Robotaxi to boost stock prices may once again disappoint investors. At a critical time when it was supposed to increase product demand and drive business growth by lowering prices and introducing new methods, Musk chose to carry out autonomous vehicle projects that are difficult to see in the short term.

Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives believes Tesla should promote Robotaxi and Model 2 at the same time. If Tesla sees Robotaxi as a solution to replace Model 2, this would be a serious strategic mistake.

He believes that although Robotaxi has broad prospects, at this stage, as a more affordable car option, the Model 2 is more urgent to meet the needs of large-scale markets around the world.

Tesla's FSD woes

First quarter results were called a “disaster,” then it was revealed that a new affordable Model 2 model would be delayed or completely cancelled. Musk quickly responded and made a big move: driverless taxis (Robotaxis) will be launched on August 8.

However, there are many uncertainties about whether Robotaxi can become Tesla's “lifesaver.” The essence of the Robotaxi business is to earn intermediary fees. If mass production is actually achieved, the economy will be better than Uber's online car-hailing, and this is one of the reasons Tesla entered the market.

However, analysts believe that although the economic outlook is promising, given the complex technology, it will take time to verify whether autonomous driving can actually be realized. According to media analysis, one of the key criteria for judging whether Tesla's FSD technology is actually ready is whether Tesla is willing to take responsibility for accidents that occur in the autonomous driving mode of its cars.

Bryant Walker Smith, an expert at the University of South Carolina School of Law who studies autonomous driving laws, said that unless Tesla clearly states that drivers don't need to pay attention to road conditions, can not be responsible for driving, and are not responsible for accidents that occur during autonomous driving, Tesla will not actually achieve autonomous driving.

Judging from the above judgment criteria, Musk's attitude towards autonomous driving is somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, he promised to launch robot taxis and actively promote assisted driving systems to buyers; on the other hand, he is also defending lawsuits brought against the system for failing to perform its due role.

Musk has predicted that Tesla will have 1 million robot taxis in 2020, but as of now, Tesla has not launched a car that does not require driver monitoring.

Tesla revealed the limitations of its driver assistance systems in the lawsuit. Recently, Tesla reached a settlement with the families of the victims over a fatal car accident involving the Autopilot driver assistance system in Silicon Valley. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believes the system may give drivers a false sense of safety.

Professor Philip Koopman said that every player entering the autonomous vehicle market has discovered that a project that was originally thought to take only a year or two will take ten to twenty years to complete. “Tesla also discovered this.”

John Krafcik, former CEO of Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company owned by Google, said that Tesla promised that all of their cars would be fully autonomous eight years ago, and during this period, Tesla changed its statement many times. Most people think it will take a few years for Tesla to achieve full autonomous driving, which may not be possible this year.

Tesla's autonomous driving relies on cameras and radar; it doesn't use lidar. Koopman thinks it's like “tying a person's hand behind the back.”

Facing regulatory and legal restrictions, Robotaxi may be restricted

Currently, the main bottleneck in starting the Robotaxi business is obtaining permission from various state regulators, and the level of legal supervision limits the speed of its promotion.

In 2023, Robotaxi “confronted” the traffic police several times in the US. Robotaxi, including Waymo and Cruise, was asked by the traffic police to stop by the traffic police while driving on open roads. However, although Robotaxi braked because it recognized someone in front, it didn't seem to understand the traffic police's gestures. Instead, it stopped in the middle of the road and standoff with the traffic police for more than a minute, causing a traffic jam.

The media quoted industry insiders as pointing out that more targeted algorithm training is needed to solve the problem. The industry expects it to take 10 years. The security risks involved are also an important reason limiting the liberalization of supervision:

The long-tail problem of autonomous driving caused by a large number of edge scenarios is that about 10% of the scenarios fail. Furthermore, autonomous driving technology is still imperfect, especially at the level of perception and decision-making, and Robotaxi “does not comply” frequently.

Professor Bryant Walker Smith said that due to the gap between Musk and Tesla's promises and actual progress in autonomous driving, and some questionable remarks made by Musk may cause Tesla's driver assistance systems to face more scrutiny and questioning.

California is at the cutting edge of autonomous taxi development in the US. According to the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Works Commission (CPUC), the agency responsible for overseeing robot taxis, Tesla has yet to apply for the two licenses required to launch driverless taxi services, although Musk announced last week that it will release robot taxi products in August.

Tesla currently only holds a road test license for low-level autonomous vehicles from the California DMV, and only allows testing in the presence of a safe human driver. Industry insiders said that Intesla is more dependent on its existing assisted driving system, and it may take longer to obtain a license to operate an autonomous taxi, or it may not even be approved.

Take Waymo as an example. As a spin-off company in Google's autonomous vehicle division, it applied in December 2022 and obtained a CPUC operating license 8 months later. As can be seen from this, obtaining a license is not an easy task.

Editor/Somer