Wall Street and everyday investors want answers on Optimus, robotaxis and new EVs ahead of third-quarter earnings
Tesla investors are looking for more details on how quickly the company can begin scaling production and selling its Optimus humanoid robots.
Next week, Tesla Inc. will report its third-quarter earnings to Wall Street, and investors are hoping Chief Executive Elon Musk can answer some big questions.
Some retail investors want to know more about Tesla’s (TSLA) promised driverless taxi service, according to the company’s investor platform, where shareholders can submit questions for consideration. They are not alone, as institutional investors and Wall Street analysts are also curious for more details about the robotaxi business.
Musk has promoted Tesla as an artificial-intelligence company rather than a traditional automaker, emphasizing that robots and self-driving cars are its future. Investors and analysts alike are looking for Musk to shed some light on how quickly Tesla can ramp up its robotaxis, especially given the CEO’s ambitious forecasts.
“I think we will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the U.S. by the end of the year,” Musk told investors in July – noting that scaling operations will rely on regulatory approval and demonstrating the safety of the technology.
Tesla launched its inaugural self-driving taxi service over the summer in Austin, Texas, although it currently relies on Model Y SUVs with a safety driver present. The company also offers rides in San Francisco, a popular testing ground, and has been granted permits in Nevada and Arizona. Tesla has indicated it wants to expand into Florida and other states.
But the company will need to win over government officials and receive their approval. U.S. auto-safety regulators last week opened a fresh inquiry into some 2.9 million vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving (FSD), Tesla’s driver-assistance system. In an update to its software earlier this week, Tesla referred to a driving system known as “Mad Max” that features “higher speeds and more frequent lane changes.”
Morningstar analysts expect it will take at least a few years before Tesla is capable of fully operating an entirely driverless system, despite the company’s forecast for a 2026 launch. Wall Street analysts project the driverless system will be a major moneymaker when it becomes fully operational.
Ark Investment Management – the tech-focused investment firm run by Cathie Wood that is known for its bullish stance on Tesla – has projected Tesla’s robotaxi service to represent around 90% of its enterprise value by 2029, hypothesizing that Tesla should have a manufacturing and data-collection advantage over rivals in a potentially $10 trillion market. The company’s Cybercab vehicle is slated to begin mass production next year.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to robotaxis, Tesla investors are looking to Musk for more details on how quickly Tesla can begin scaling production and selling its Optimus humanoid robots. These are robots that the company aims to deploy in everything from childcare work to factory tasks. Musk has said that Tesla wants to make several thousand units this year, and that around 80% of Tesla’s value will eventually be derived from Optimus.
But the company has scrapped its plans to build 10,000 units for internal use this year, according to the Information, which reported that Tesla has had difficulty with the robots’ hands. Milan Kovac, Tesla’s vice president of Optimus robotics, also left the company in June after nine years at the company.
Some shareholders submitting questions on Tesla’s investor platform want to know if Tesla will launch new vehicles – including an SUV modeled after the futuristic Cybertruck pickup truck, or a compact car modeled after the Cybercab. While Tesla has discussed developing modified Cybertrucks before, the company has steered clear of a direct answer.
“Those are definitely things we’ve considered. Wait and see is probably the best way I can answer that,” Tesla Chief Designer Franz Von Holzer said, when asked on a Bloomberg News podcast in September about a new vehicle based on the Cybertruck.
Although Tesla is willing to entertain a modified Cybertruck, the same can’t be said for a compact car based on the Cybercab. Initially, the automaker had planned to make both a robotaxi and an $25,000 vehicle from the same platform, but Musk now says that it would be “silly” and “pointless” to make a regular model.
Despite interest in such models, Tesla has taken a different approach to affordability. Earlier this month, the company began selling stripped-down, cheaper Model Y and Model 3 vehicles, which could help boost sales after federal tax credits for electric-vehicle buyers expired in September.
Tesla is still the dominant player in the U.S. EV market, but its controlling share of that market has declined as rivals keep improving and expanding their EV portfolios.
The “challenges are only getting tougher for Tesla, which essentially has a two-vehicle lineup supported by three niche vehicles,” the research firm Cox Automotive noted in a recent report.
-William Gavin
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