• Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi concept on October 10, providing demonstrations and pricing information.
• Many were left disappointed after the event, which was pushed back from early August.
• Investors and fanatics were hoping for more information on production advancements and technical specifications.
• The price of the products seemed to be the only major talking point outside of total market potential.
• Tesla stock tumbled as much as 9% following the event.

Tesla announced its long-awaited Robotaxi on October 10 during its ‘We Robot’ event at Warner Brother’s studio in Hollywood. The launch included three main products – the ‘Cybercab’, ‘Robovan’, and ‘Optimus’ prototypes – all on full display with live demonstrations for guests. Tesla unveiled some details on pricing for each product, but the event, overall, left many disappointed. Some on ‘X’ were left scratching their heads over the lack of detail provided on each product. Others also accused Tesla of the Optimus humanoid robots being operated by humans remotely behind the scenes.

Source: Tesla Investor Relations

Cybercab Takeaways:

• The vehicle is expected to have a sub-$30,000 price tag.
• No steering wheel or pedals will be featured in the car.
• The vehicle comes with two fairly basic seats, a large trunk and a large 20.5-inch center display that provides passengers with trip progress and various entertainment features.
• The Cybercab will not come with the Tesla staple glass roof and has some interesting disc-like wheel covers for aerodynamics.
• It will cost about $0.20 per mile to operate the vehicle.
• Unsupervised FSD to begin testing in Texas and California next year with the Model 3 and Model Y.
• Unsupervised FSD will drive the Cybercab, which is expected to go into production in 2026-2027.
• The Cybercab will feature inductive charging as the only form of charging versus the plug-in solution.
• Availability will depend largely on regulatory environments for each US state.
• People will be able to purchase and lend these out for ride hailing.

Source: Tesla Investor Relations

Robovan Takeaways:

• The van will have a 20-person capacity.
• It will operate fully autonomously as well.
• Some use cases range from personal use to use for municipalities, schools, and chartering services.
• No details provided on pricing or launch timelines.

Source: Tesla Investor Relations

Optimus Takeaways:

• Elon Musk has envisioned each household having access to an Optimus unit eventually.
• The personal assistant robot will come at a $20,000 to $30,000 price tag eventually once production scales.
• Optimus can perform everyday tasks including mowing the lawn, cooking, or even tutoring.
• Demonstrations were given and some speculated that the robots were being remotely piloted rather than autonomously operating.
• The idea of total addressable market was reinforced here again to try and appeal to investors, but concrete timelines for public availability were avoided.

Source: Tesla Investor Relations

This event felt like more of a reinforcement of Musk's vision rather than an update on the roadmap progress. Guests were treated to a "Westworld" concept in a controlled environment. While we understand and support the vision that Tesla is moving forward, we think some more concrete details, production updates and technical specifications would have gone a long way to put investors at ease. Full self-driving is such a monumental undertaking, especially with a model driven solely off vision sensors, and still faces many regulatory/testing barriers before the company will begin to feel the benefit of those returns. Tesla’s stock traded in the mid- to high-single-digit percentages throughout the day following the event.