Why is Elon Musk still falling short of our expectations? Tesla Cybercab disappointment

Sign up to receive daily news updates from CleanTechnica via email. Or follow us on Google News!

Tesla’s stock value fell nearly 9% to close the week. The “We, Robot” event held late Thursday night was a failure, according to many experts. As Hollywood watched — or tried to watch, as the event began broadcasting late — CEO Elon Musk was, at least, consistent. As someone who has failed to deliver on many promises, the Cybercab reveal was another one in a long list of rejected dreams.

It is said that a prototype is easy, while it is very difficult to bring a production model of the vehicle to the market. Tesla’s appeal for driverless robotaxis has lost much of its luster. Cathie Woods, where are you? Is Tesla’s future still confined to its self-driving cars? If so, how long can we wait to see it come to fruition?

Tesla faced a major test after its third-quarter 2024 delivery numbers fell slightly below Wall Street expectations. The once-postponed but highly anticipated robotaxi event on October 10 could have been transformative for the company.

When members of the broadcast audience logged into X or YouTube to watch the event, a vortex of bright electrons greeted their screens, and the audience waited. I waited nearly an hour. Eventually, the Warner Bros. film studio group came into being. Neon lights illuminated the dark artificial buildings and streets. Musk, dressed all in black, entered via a prototype silver two-door Cybercab equipped with strobe lights and electronic dance music punctuating his movements.

The Cybercab had no steering wheel (or yoke) or pedals.

Musk entered a colorful circle on the floor — at that moment he was at the center of the universe, sporting a partly shy, partly adolescent smile. “It’s going to be a glorious future,” Musk exclaimed.

The Cybercab’s specifications were vague at best

“Today’s transportation sucks,” was the title of the video that played in the background while Musk spoke. Focusing throughout his narrative on the transition from “moderated” to “unmoderated,” the evening was all about the company preparing to seize the future now by starting to build a fully self-driving Cybercab. Musk, who was a showman for PT Barnum, insisted that Cybercab products would reshape cities by “turning parking lots into parks.”

Musk said the company has 21 e-taxis and a total of 50 “autonomous” cars on site. Pricing for one system will be less than $30,000. Among the exhibits is an automated car capable of transporting 20 people around the city.

The dancing robot bartenders will eventually sell for $20,000 to $30,000 apiece. “I think this will be the biggest product ever, of any kind,” Musk announced, keeping his thumb on the pulse of the mass audience ever. Musk said Tesla wanted to show that its robot now in development, titled Optimus, was not just a “canned video.”

What we saw of the Cybercab convertible, what was missing

Some Tesla investors and experts said they were hoping for more concrete details about how the company plans to transform from a car maker into a self-driving and artificial intelligence company — given the lack of a solid business plan imminent. Musk did not provide any information about plans for production sites other than the goal of ramping up before 2027.

Tasha Kenny, director of investment analysis at Tesla Investors ARK Investment Management, admitted she was hungry for more details. However, Kenney likes how Tesla appears to be on track to introduce an unsupervised version of its full self-driving system in Texas and California next year. “If they can do that, I see no reason not to launch a robotaxi service soon after,” she said.

Meanwhile, shares of ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft rose about 4%, signaling confidence in options beyond Musk’s mighty division.

“His vision is beautiful, but someone has to make it a reality,” Ross Gerber, a Tesla shareholder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, told Reuters. “Right now, for the next 24 months, Tesla has to sell electric cars. Why don’t we focus on that?” Gerber agreed that products like the Cybercab and robovan are good, but he was also hoping to see a more traditional, lower-priced mass-market vehicle that the company could sell in the near future as part of the big event.

“We were obviously looking for more details about exactly what his future plans will be and how he will monetize this new AI and robotics,” said Ramesh Bhola, co-chief investment officer at Creative Planning, which owns Tesla shares. Bolla was impressed by the We, Robot presentation, but expects widespread adoption of self-driving cybertaxis, where passengers can book rides through an Uber-style app, is still “three to four years away.”

Musk has focused on expanding the scope of his self-driving vehicles through an affordable technology approach that can get to market faster than rivals Alphabet and Waymo. Currently, Tesla’s AI technology cannot determine the cause of a malfunction or other failure. Organizers are not impressed. The competition relies on redundancy with additional systems and more expensive sensors as a safety precaution.

Tesla’s unveiling of its robotaxi is an important and positive step in automotive innovation, but the safety of these vehicles is a concern, Brad Rosen, COO of NODAR, agrees with CleanTechnica. Noting that Musk was clear about his poor assessment of lidar — “an expensive 3D sensor that many robotaxi companies rely on, arguing that if a human can drive using only vision, so can a vehicle.” Rosen says this view is “short-sighted.” The human brain processes input from our eyes and other senses and enables us to analyze and react to familiar and new situations instantly.

“Although Tesla’s FSD chip is very powerful, the capabilities of the human brain are dwarfed by its computing power. Tesla is doing something new with artificial intelligence, using multiple cameras with neural networks to make steering decisions. But insufficient computing power, Combined with the inability to train networks for every possible scenario — or even a fraction of the edge cases that humans handle well — makes Tesla vehicles inadequately prepared for many driving situations.

Koby Marenko, CEO of Arbe, agrees that many experts question how the technology can work effectively with a vision-only approach. “We don’t believe in safety based only on vision,” Marenko admitted to CleanTechnica.

“In 2022, Elon Musk tweeted, ‘Only high-resolution radar is suitable.'” This comment rings true among automotive experts since there is no radar on the market currently detailed enough to support AI. To support AI, high-resolution perception radar is It is absolutely essential and should be used with cameras to ensure safety, repeatability, and facilitate current and future AI developments.

We have some smart readers who follow our work here at CleanTechnica. One person who caught my attention this week is the attentive Jack Niles, who did a close reading of my We, Robot preview article. In the lead-up to this event, we learned from hype that a custom Tesla Robotaxi would transport passengers without a driver — a goal for which Tesla’s semi-autonomous software has yet to prove reliable.

“Although several CyberCars have been seen driving alone in a closed area in Burbank, California, they have not yet been licensed to operate on regular streets, but at least they exist,” Niles admitted.

“Since Musk avoided providing any details on production schedules, inventory is expected to drop on Friday,” Niles continued. “If Musk can’t limit himself to the technology and refrain from making ridiculous political statements in the future, this may just be a temporary glitch.”

Let’s hope Niles is right and Musk can temper his love of the luxury scene and, instead, focus on making the once-dominant electric car company shine again.