Elon Musk’s latest reveal could change how we get around forever

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is placing bets on a shift in focus from low-priced, mass-market cars to robotic vehicles. On October 10, 2024, he showcased the company's long-awaited Cybercab and surprised attendees with the reveal of a larger Robovan at a glitzy unveiling dubbed "We, Robot" at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, which was live-streamed on X.

Musk promises autonomous Cybercab and Robovan will reshape urban landscapes, but little else

After a nearly one-hour delay, Musk arrived in the fully autonomous two-door Cybercab prototype, stating that it will begin production in earnest by 2026 and with a price of less than $30,000. He then showed off a much larger Robovan that seats 20 and said the vehicle would reshape urban areas by "turning parking lots into parks."

Aside from that, the technological details of both vehicles—safety features, range, and system configurations—came up surprisingly short during the 20-minute presentation.

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Investor skepticism follows bold announcements despite Cybercab and Robovan unveiling

The news, or lack of it, made investors more skeptical than excited, and Tesla stocks plummeted on October 11. According to Yahoo Finance, Josh Beck, an analyst at Raymond James Financial, called the presentation "vague" and "underwhelming," while Tom Narayan, an RBC Capital analyst, stated that Musk's vision "was light on real numbers and timelines…these typically come at Tesla events. This one seemed focused on branding and marketing Tesla's vision rather than giving concrete numbers for us to model out."

Barron's states that Morgan Stanley analyst and Tesla bull Adam Jonas concurred. "That's it?" he wrote in a Friday report. "The highly anticipated 'We, Robot' event demonstrated Cybercab (expected) but overall disappointed expectations on a number of areas: a lack of data regarding rate-of-change on [self-driving] tech, ride-share economics, and go-to-market strategy."

However, some attendees were impressed by what they saw, like Wedbush analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives, who said, "We believe last night was a glimpse of the future of Tesla and next generation transportation for consumers…[and] strongly disagree with the notion that last night was a disappointment as we would argue the opposite seeing Cybercab with our own eyes."

A showy display in Tesla's Optimus robots that felt more like a gimmick

The presentation continued as Musk introduced an army of Tesla's still-in-development humanoid Optimus robots that later interacted with attendees, handing out gift bags and serving drinks. With a price tag of $20,000 to $30,000 "long term," Musk explained that the robots can "do anything" and mentioned a variety of everyday tasks, from mowing the lawn to babysitting. He said, "I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind."

While many at the event thought the robots were fully autonomous, it was later discovered they were being controlled by humans remotely. This added to investors' skepticism. Lux Capital co-founder Josh Wolfe tweeted, "Not wholly AI? Not at all AI. It's totally worthy to celebrate low latency remote control but totally dishonest to demo these as autonomous robots—call it the parlor trick it is."

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Musk stated that Tesla is expanding self-driving capabilities in its most popular models by next year, but its lower-cost "next-gen" model was not mentioned

According to Musk, Tesla's popular Model 3 and Model Y cars will begin unsupervised full self-driving (FSD) trials in California and Texas next year. Further trials will take place when regulars allow Tesla to do so.

Analysts had also expected the Tesla CEO to reveal plans for the company's upcoming lower-cost "next-gen" model (rumored since January 2024), but there was no mention of it.

Final thoughts

While Musk highlighted what he believes is the future of transportation in the Cybercab and Robovan, many attendees were left wanting more clarity on key details. The event's focus on spectacle raised questions among investors and analysts about the company's direction and readiness for technological advancements.