Tesla has big plans to release a company-saving robotaxi next week, leveraging the incredible advantage in autonomous technology that the company swears it has in order to prevent the whole house of cards from tumbling down. The Tesla faithful hoping to see a real life robotaxi might be disappointed, however: New analyst info says that Tesla may be showing off nothing more than renderings.
Tesla investors over at Deepwater Asset Management, an investment firm focused on “transformative technologies and innovators,” published a list of expectations for the upcoming event last week. This list included not one, not two, but three new Tesla models — certainly a bullish expectation from a company that’s released six consumer-facing models ever. Among all that optimism, however, there’s an interesting prediction: Tesla will have a physical, semi-functional prototype of the Robotaxi on display, but the other two vehicles will be naught but renders.
Deepwater portfolio research analyst Brian Baker and managing partner Gene Munster, who penned the list of predictions, admit that the actual release of the Robotaxi is likely far away. The pair quote Musk’s statement on the launch event delay, in which he claimed he “wanted to make some important changes,” stating that this likely means the car is still early in its design phase — don’t expect to see anything production-ready at the reveal. Beyond that, the analysts also talked about regulatory barriers to a fully autonomous vehicle, which are far from codified enough to make sending strangers around in your car while you work a legal possibility.
The upcoming Tesla event will not, according to all signs, immediately usher in a new era in which we can all relax in comfort on the way to work. We will not all be freed from the toil of operating a motor vehicle between point A and point B — and likely won’t be for years. Unless, of course, you just take public transit.