Tesla CEO Elon Musk is confident in the value of robotaxis and self-driving technology, urging skeptics to test drive the latest self-driving car to see its potential. However, Wall Street analyst William Stein experienced issues during a test drive, questioning the reliability of Tesla’s full self driving (FSD) feature. Other drivers have also reported problems with FSD, raising doubts about the autonomous driving and robotaxis that Musk is banking Tesla’s future on.
Despite the glitches encountered during the test drive, Stein noted some improvements in FSD’s ability to adapt to challenging disruptions, such as lane closures and heavy traffic. Musk believes that Tesla’s robotaxi service could significantly increase the value of the company’s vehicles, even projecting that Tesla shares could be worth $5 trillion by the end of the decade. However, the company has postponed the rollout of the robotaxi service to make important improvements to the vehicles.
While Musk remains optimistic about the future of Tesla’s self-driving technology, safety regulators have raised concerns about the reliability of FSD and the less advanced Autopilot feature. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ordered recalls of Tesla vehicles due to safety risks associated with the features. NHTSA found that Autopilot can give drivers a false sense of security and be easily misused in dangerous situations where the technology may fail to navigate safely.
Despite the setbacks and concerns raised by safety regulators, Musk is confident that Tesla’s self-driving technology will be ready for robotaxi service by next year. However, Musk acknowledged that his predictions about the timeline for the service have been overly optimistic in the past. Tesla, which does not have a public relations staff, did not respond to inquiries about the issues raised in Stein’s note, indicating a lack of transparency on the company’s part regarding the challenges with its FSD technology.
While Musk continues to promote the potential of Tesla’s autonomous driving technology, the performance issues reported by analysts like Stein raise doubts about the reliability and safety of the FSD feature. As Tesla aims to push forward with its robotaxi service and achieve Musk’s ambitious valuation targets for the company, addressing the concerns raised by regulators and analysts will be crucial to ensuring the success and widespread adoption of Tesla’s self-driving technology in the future.
