Tesla stock plunges after Elon Musk robotaxi event disappoints

Rather than adding momentum to the stock’s recent rise, the robotaxi unveiling proved a “sell the news” event that some analysts predicted as shares plunged over 7% Friday morning. The stock is now down around 11% this year, compared to the S&P 500’s more than 22% gain. Tesla has already been booted off the so-called “Magnificent Seven”—America’s seven largest tech companies by market cap—by surging semiconductor and software giant Broadcom. 

Even famous Tesla bulls like Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives said Musk and Tesla didn’t offer enough specifics on how the company would execute its autonomous vision.  

“That will naturally weigh on shares this morning as a knee jerk reaction,” he and colleagues wrote in a note. “That said, we strongly disagree with the notion that last night was a disappointment as we would argue the opposite seeing Cybercab with our own eyes and the massive improvements in Optimus which we interacted with throughout the evening.”

Musk has not shied away from the notion that he has staked the company’s future on successfully delivering autonomous vehicles. He and Tesla bulls agree robotaxis could propel the company to a $5 trillion valuation, compared to roughly $700 billion now.

Tesla is banking it can overtake companies like Alphabet-owned Waymo, which is already on roads, because of its vision to deliver a vehicle with a much cheaper price point that is not confined to a geofenced area, Morningstar’s Seth Goldstein, an equity strategist at Morningstar and chair of the firm’s electric vehicle committee, recently told Fortune.

Musk unveiled 20 vehicles on Thursday, saying Tesla’s “Cybercab” would be available for under $30,000, compared to about $250,000 for a single Waymo vehicle. Beyond saying the Cybercab would be ready for 2027—and admitting he has previously been a “little optimistic” with past timelines—Musk did not say where the vehicle would be manufactured.

The company did surprise attendees by also unveiling a “robovan” that can carry up to 20 people, though no production date or price were mentioned for the product.

“The Cybercab demos were conducted on a movie set in a well-controlled environment,
and were very similar to a slow & short amusement park ride,” Wells Fargo analysts, who attended the event, wrote in note Friday morning. “Waymo is now hosting 100K rides per week in major cities, so we expected more from TSLA’s demo.”

Tesla’s autonomous vehicle strategy is based on further developing its “full self-driving software” (FSD), which still requires human supervision.

Musk said some of Tesla’s electric vehicles should feature “unsupervised FSD” in Texas and California next year. Many analysts emphasized, however, that there were no near-term updates on the software’s progress or any data released to showcase improvement.

Wells Fargo did acknowledge that the biggest positive were the Optimus robots, who milled about the event and served drinks, though they added that the economics around this product remain unclear.

Any momentum Tesla’s stock had heading into the event has now fizzled, and Tesla bears will likely continue to feel vindicated heading into the company’s earnings call on Oct. 23. The stock plunged following July’s earnings call, in which Musk largely failed to address questions around worsening profitability and instead mused on the company’s future.

For Tesla management, Goldstein explained, that’s par for the course.

“They tend to take a long-term view,” he said, “and so if they have a couple bad quarters, they don’t really care if the stock sells off.”

Musk’s charisma and showmanship, along with glamorous product reveals like Thursday’s event, have helped Tesla build a devoted fanbase of shareholders. In the short-term, at least, their loyalty will continue to be tested.