Tesla Stock Jumps 8% with Robotaxi Debut, Yet Autopilot Concerns Surface

TradingKey - On June 22, Eastern Time, Tesla's highly anticipated Robotaxi made its debut in Austin, Texas. This unveiling propelled Tesla's stock to surge more than 8% on Monday, adding approximately $ 95.7 billion to the company's market capitalization overnight, reaching $ 1.13 trillion. CEO Elon Musk also saw his net worth increase by about $12.2 billion due to his ownership of 410.8 million shares of Tesla.

However, behind the shiny market data, the actual performance of the Robotaxi has been disappointing, with numerous serious issues revealed in various on-site videos.

The vehicle has reportedly crossed double yellow lines and driven against traffic lanes at times, drawing honks from other drivers as warnings. It has also displayed problematic behavior, such as decelerating abruptly when an emergency vehicle lights up far ahead without any immediate obstacles in front, affecting driving smoothness. Additionally, there have been failures in positioning and parking; it sometimes stops right in the middle of intersections per instructions and fails to accurately locate users upon request, necessitating users to walk and find their vehicles.

Tesla’s reliance on a purely camera-based solution (without LiDAR) has raised significant concerns about safety under low-light and complex road conditions; its system engagement frequency is much higher than that of competitors like Waymo.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has requested an explanation from Tesla regarding these incidents and initiated information collection while stating that it will investigate "accidents involving potential safety defects" and take steps to ensure road safety.

Industry analysts believe that while Tesla’s low-cost model relying on retrofitting mass-produced vehicles shows potential for development, significant challenges remain for substantial progress in the autonomous driving sector related to data quality and handling edge cases effectively.