Tesla's Robotaxi Just Launched in Miami -- Its First City Outside Texas and California. Can It Rescue the Stock?
Key Points
Tesla's Robotaxi service began carrying riders in Miami on Friday, its first market outside Texas and California.
Tesla's own roadmap lists Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix, and Las Vegas as the next markets in preparation.
Shares jumped almost 7% on Monday.
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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) Robotaxis began picking up passengers in Miami on Friday -- the company's first market outside Texas and California. The service begins modestly, in a geofenced slice of western Miami-Dade County reportedly running from West Miami toward Doral, with downtown and Miami Beach left out for now.
The day before, Tesla reported 480,126 second-quarter deliveries, up about 25% year over year -- and the stock fell 7.5% anyway. But the stock is regaining some ground on Monday as investors hope the company's Robotaxi business may begin to gain steam.
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Is the Robotaxi business scaling fast enough to be that something?
Cybercab. Image source: Tesla.
The map is filling in
The Robotaxi service is barely a year old. Tesla launched it in Austin last summer with safety monitors aboard, began removing them, and has been layering on markets since. Miami is a sensible next test bed, too: flat roads, year-round driving weather, and heavy visitor traffic that leans on ride-hailing.
Notably, Miami extends the Robotaxi footprint beyond Tesla's home states for the first time. According to the company's first-quarter update, Tesla lists Austin, Dallas, and Houston as ramping unsupervised, operates with safety drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area, and lists Miami, Orlando, Tampa, Phoenix, and Las Vegas as markets with preparations underway. Friday converted the first of those five from planned to live.
But Tesla still hasn't yet reached meaningful scale -- at least not enough to significantly enhance the bull case for the stock. The Austin fleet is still reportedly measured by the dozens of vehicles, with the unsupervised portion of this fleet smaller still. And early riders across markets have described long waits and occasional software misfires. Additionally, availability remains limited to specific service areas in Tesla's dedicated Robotaxi app -- another sign this remains a controlled rollout rather than a mass-market service.
What a city launch can't fix
The market's frustration that has left shares in the red for the year arguably isn't about Tesla's expanding Robotaxi service. The company's first-quarter operating margin was just 4.2%, on revenue that grew 16%.
Additionally, the stock's valuation remains difficult to justify. With $1.10 in earnings per share over the past 12 months, the stock trades at more than 380 times earnings -- a price that arguably makes sense only if autonomy becomes a large, profitable business on a reasonable timeline. Growth in the teens isn't what investors are paying for. Autonomy is.
Ultimately, a launch in Miami shows progress. But investors still need more concrete evidence to know Robotaxi can become material to results soon. Tesla hasn't disclosed Robotaxi revenue, ride volumes, utilization, or per-mile costs. Investors, therefore, are still mostly left in the dark.
We'll likely know more on July 22, when Tesla is scheduled to report earnings. If Tesla opts to provide more data on the Robotaxi program and more details about its plans and its potential economics, investors will have more data points to gauge just how much this Robotaxi business may be worth to the overall business.
So, can Miami rescue the stock?
Based on the stock's sharp rebound on Monday, the initial phases of a rescue may already be underway. But shares are still down almost 7% year to date. To fully recover, Tesla will likely need more upbeat news on its Robotaxi program -- news that starts making it sound like the program will soon start contributing meaningfully to Tesla's financial results.
The rollout cadence is encouraging -- five markets live and four more queued -- and Tesla is executing the expansion it laid out for investors. But with a price-to-earnings ratio of about 380, the growth stock needs autonomy to start showing up in the financial statements, not just on maps.
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Daniel Sparks has clients with positions in Tesla. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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