On October 11, Beijing time, Tesla's "We Robot" conference was held at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles, USA. The event, which lasted only about half an hour, brought many surprises.

Previously, Musk referred to the event as "a day that will go down in history." He also called Robotaxi a "revolution in the transportation industry" and claimed that Tesla's Robotaxi would change the world, making it more convenient, safer, and more environmentally friendly.

At the conference, Musk arrived on stage in a Cybercab, Tesla's self-driving taxi. The sleek, gull-wing-doored Robotaxi was packed with tech, but its standout feature was the lack of a steering wheel and pedals, truly embodying "self-driving."

In addition to the self-driving taxi, Tesla also unveiled the larger Robovan, a self-driving van that also lacks a steering wheel and pedals. Musk also noted significant progress with the Optimus robot. While the vision is grand, the timeline for mass production of Robotaxi and Cybercab has been pushed back to 2027, and no timeline was given for Optimus.

The capital markets were overwhelmingly disappointed with the conference, and this sentiment was reflected in Tesla's share price. After the conference, Tesla's stock price fell, dropping nearly 9% by October 11, its biggest decline in nearly two months. The company's market value plummeted by nearly $70 billion (around RMB 494.7 billion) in a single trading day, and the stock price showed no signs of recovery as of press time.

Tesla's Robotaxi Arrives Late to the Party

The livestream of the conference attracted over 2 million viewers, with the theme "We, Robot" seen as a nod to Isaac Asimov's short story collection "I, Robot."

Musk chose the Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles for the conference, and the promotional videos were truly magical. In videos circulating on social media, people rode in Cybercabs without steering wheels or brake pedals, navigating through movie sets. Even TeslaBot was seen serving drinks, engaging in smooth conversation, and posing for selfies with a peace sign.

At the conference, Musk, dressed in a leather jacket, shared his latest outlook on autonomous driving technology. He confidently declared, "The future of autonomous driving has arrived. This technology will revolutionize the way we travel and save us a tremendous amount of time."

He claimed that autonomous vehicles could be up to ten times safer than human-driven cars and potentially operate for five to ten times longer.

Tesla unveiled three products at the conference: the self-driving taxi "Cybercab," the self-driving van "Robovan," and the humanoid robot "Optimus." The highly anticipated self-driving taxi, the Cybercab, was undoubtedly the star of the show.

As a self-driving vehicle, the standout feature of the Cybercab is the absence of a steering wheel and pedals. Visually, it blends design elements from the Model 3 and Cybertruck, with butterfly doors and a coupe-like silhouette that seats two passengers, closely resembling the Robotaxi prototype described in "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future."

Notably, the Cybercab lacks a charging port, relying instead on inductive wireless charging. Unlike other self-driving car manufacturers, Tesla's significant advantage lies in eschewing the costly lidar configuration and adhering to a purely vision-based FSD (Full Self-Driving) solution, significantly reducing production costs. According to Musk, the Cybercab will cost less than $30,000 (around RMB 210,000) and is expected to enter production in 2026. Its operating costs may drop to just $0.20 per mile as the business expands, far below the current $1 per mile.

However, the conference did not provide many details about the latest progress of the FSD system. Musk emphasized that Tesla's FSD is approximately ten times safer than human driving and will achieve fully unsupervised FSD in California and Texas next year. Outside the US, Tesla will continue to monitor regulatory developments.

According to Tesla's financial reports, as of the second quarter of 2024, Tesla's FSD had accumulated over 1.6 billion miles (approximately 2.574 billion kilometers) of fully autonomous driving.

Tesla's AI team announced on September 5 that it expects to launch the FSD system in China and Europe in the first quarter of 2025, pending regulatory approval.

Musk described the conference as "a day that will go down in history" and firmly believes in the transformative power of Robotaxi.

Musk has stated that he is betting Tesla's financial future on this product, predicting that the business could potentially increase Tesla's market value to $5 trillion. In his ideal business blueprint, once cars achieve full autonomy, their usage rates could increase five- to tenfold, with weekly usage hours soaring from 10 to over 160, allowing a single person to manage a large fleet.

Regarding when Tesla's Robotaxi will go into operation, Musk stated that the Cybercab is expected to enter production in 2026, with a target of 2027 at the latest. Existing Tesla users can experience the self-driving taxi functionality by equipping their current models with FSD.

The Robotaxi Market Is a Three-Way Battle, and Tesla Still Faces Challenges

This technological extravaganza, which captivated the world's attention, also sparked heated debate on Chinese social media. Some netizens believe Tesla was paying homage to the Chinese autonomous driving company Luobokuai.

Among Chinese self-driving taxi manufacturers, Baidu's Luobokuai launched its sixth-generation self-driving car, the Apollo RT6, as early as 2022, supporting both steering wheel-free and steering wheel-equipped modes.

More importantly, unlike Tesla's uncertain Robotaxi mass production timeline, Luobokuai's sixth-generation self-driving car achieved mass production in May this year, with costs reduced to around RMB 200,000. It has already completed over 7 million rides nationwide.

While Musk was still talking the talk, Luobokuai accelerated its global expansion plans, aiming to enter overseas markets. Meanwhile, Baidu's Apollo Autonomous Driving Open Platform 10.0 is set to be released soon, featuring Baidu's latest ADFM (Autonomous Driving Foundation Model), which will significantly enhance the platform's safety, intelligence, and ease of use.

Undoubtedly, Tesla's entry with the Cybercab has reignited the self-driving taxi industry, igniting a fierce rivalry between Chinese and American tech companies.

In this technological showdown, Tesla's advantage lies in its globally leading integrated circuit technology and high-end chip design capabilities, providing a solid foundation for the development of high-performance automotive chips and ensuring the real-time and stability of the autonomous driving system.

In contrast, Chinese autonomous driving companies like Luobokuai focus on exploring infrastructure resources to improve overall efficiency, leveraging emerging technologies such as 5G communication networks and cloud computing.

The global self-driving industry is on the cusp of an explosion. According to consultancy firm McKinsey, the revenue of the self-driving taxi market could reach a staggering $1.3 trillion by 2030. Currently, the global market is a three-way battle.

In addition to Tesla and Luobokuai, one of the earliest entrants into the autonomous driving space in the US market is Waymo, a subsidiary of Google.

Founded in 2009, Waymo has been a leader in autonomous driving, adopting a "vehicle-centric" approach that integrates cameras, lidars, and millimeter-wave radars for all-around, high-precision perception of the surrounding environment. In recent years, Waymo has continuously iterated its autonomous driving technology through partnerships with multiple global automakers. This year alone, Waymo has been active in collaborations, partnering with Chinese automaker Zeekr in August to jointly develop the sixth-generation self-driving taxi and announcing a partnership with South Korean automotive giant Hyundai in October to equip its electric vehicle fleet with Waymo's autonomous driving technology.

By the end of 2025, Waymo's self-driving taxi fleet will also join Hyundai's electric vehicle lineup.

From a technological perspective, Tesla's autonomous driving technology is more aggressive, utilizing an end-to-end FSD solution. Compared to modular autonomous driving modes, this solution offers lossless transmission, data-driven decision-making, and global optimization at a relatively low cost. However, the end-to-end solution also poses challenges, such as high demands for computing power and data, as well as questions about system security and interpretability.

In terms of operational implementation, Waymo and Luobokuai have taken the lead. Recently, Waymo announced its expansion plans in the US, offering over 100,000 paid rides per week. Luobokuai completed nearly 900,000 rides in the second quarter of 2024 and is on track to break even in its service area.

Musk's Promises Are Falling Flat

While Tesla's conference sparked a technological buzz, the capital markets reacted coolly.

Musk started with a high note, announcing the "Robotaxi Day" event on April 5 this year. Following the announcement, Tesla's stock price soared, with a cumulative increase of 45% by October 11. Musk had also stated that the shift to autonomous driving and AI could potentially raise Tesla's valuation to $5 trillion, about seven times its current market value.

However, on the trading day following "Robotaxi Day," Tesla's stock price plunged 8.78%, erasing nearly $70 billion (around RMB 494.7 billion) in market value in a single trading day.

Some British and American analysts claimed that Tesla's autonomous taxi conference disappointed investors. In a research report, an analyst at Barclays Bank in the UK wrote that Tesla's latest products and announcements failed to showcase short-term growth opportunities but instead reinforced Musk's vision in the field of full self-driving.

While the unveiling of 20 Cybercabs was impressive, the market and investors were underwhelmed, generally believing that the conference lacked details. For instance, there were no clear answers to questions such as when Tesla's Robotaxi would become operational or the latest progress of FSD technology. Notably, the much-anticipated low-cost Model 2 failed to make an appearance.

Despite not meeting expectations for the Model 2, Musk still showcased muscle by introducing the "Robovan," a self-driving cargo van that looked more like a large minibus. However, technical details were not provided, and Musk merely stated that it could carry up to 20 passengers and meet cargo transportation needs, with travel costs as low as 10 cents per mile.

Furthermore, Musk concluded the conference by showcasing the humanoid robot "Optimus." According to Musk, many technologies developed by Tesla for automobiles, such as batteries, motors, software, and AI processors, can be reused in robots.

"It can do anything you want, like take care of children, walk dogs, mow lawns, go grocery shopping, or bring you a cup of coffee. I believe all 8 billion people in the world would want such a product," Musk passionately said at the event. If mass-produced, the cost of the humanoid robot could drop to $20,000 to $30,000, comparable to the price of a new energy vehicle.

However, it is worth noting that compared to the two-year timeline for the Cybercab, the mass production of the Robovan self-driving van and Optimus humanoid robot seems even more uncertain.

Facing repeated instances of overpromising and underdelivering on autonomous driving, the patience of the capital markets for Musk is wearing thin.

Nine years ago, Musk already expressed his bet on Robotaxi. In 2015, he claimed that Tesla's cars would achieve "full self-driving" within three years. A year later, he boldly stated that Tesla's cars would be capable of cross-country driving without any human intervention by the end of the following year. In 2019, during a conference call, Musk predicted that Tesla would have 1 million robot taxis ready for the road by 2020.

Even the "Robotaxi Day" conference was postponed from August to October.

In fact, Tesla's market performance has been lackluster this year. According to Tesla's third-quarter 2024 sales figures released in early October, the company delivered 463,000 new vehicles globally, representing a year-over-year increase of 6.4%. Although this marked the first quarterly growth of the year, overall deliveries for the first nine months declined by more than 2%.

Earlier this year, Musk stated that Tesla's expansion would slow down significantly. This announcement caused Tesla's stock price to plummet by over 40% by mid-April, before rallying back when news of Tesla's shift towards self-driving taxi research and development emerged.

Investors who had high hopes for Tesla's self-driving taxis were ultimately disappointed by the company's lack of "sincerity."

Musk's promises are falling flat.