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Elon Musk granted his engineers at Tesla<\/a> more time to finish development of a robotaxi prototype, pushing back the model\u2019s heavily anticipated Aug. 8 unveiling by weeks or even months.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the carmaker\u2019s CEO didn\u2019t confirm last week\u2019s\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>\u00a0report it would be\u00a0postponed until October<\/a>, he will almost certainly face questions about it from investors during the second-quarter earnings call scheduled for next Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRequested what I think is an important design change to the front,\u201d he posted on Monday, \u201cand extra time allows us to show off a few other things.\u201d<\/p>\n He did not go into further detail what those surprises might be, but fans have speculated it could be everything from the\u00a0upcoming entry car<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0all new Roadster<\/a>. The latter was initially shown off during the Tesla Semi unveil in December 2017, but has since been re-engineered.<\/p>\n In the aftermath of Thursday\u2019s\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>\u00a0report, investors had been pressing Musk to confirm or deny the story, since it wiped more than 8% off the stock price. Some even demanded the SEC investigate the news agency for market manipulation since it did not name its sources and the news had not been officially confirmed.<\/p>\n Requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things<\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Musk\u2019s comments came in response to a video posted by Warren Redlich, a Tesla influencer best known for saying he\u2019d happily take a bullet for the entrepreneur. In it, Redlich said his own private contacts told him there would be a major change to the vehicle that engineers\u2014not Musk\u2014suggested would need two months to implement.<\/p>\n Given Musk and Tesla would be motivated to prove the mainstream media wrong, the YouTuber said he wouldn\u2019t yet give up on next month\u2019s unveil: \u201cThey are doing their level best to get something that they can show on August 8th.\u201d<\/p>\n While Tesla staff may yet pull off a miracle, it looks as if that date is off the cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s well-timed April announcement of the robotaxi unveiling wasn\u2019t random. It came at a\u00a0crucial juncture<\/a>\u00a0for Tesla, reinvigorating confidence that a challenging 2024 would not mark the start of a\u00a0worrying new trend<\/a>\u00a0but would merely be a speed bump on the way to a\u00a0$30 trillion market cap<\/a>.<\/p>\n Until the announcement, investors had feared Tesla\u2019s aging line-up was no longer as competitive as it once was and would increasingly require heavy discounting to generate\u00a0sufficient sales growth<\/a>. Even the arrival of the Cybertruck looked like it would\u00a0underwhelm<\/a>\u00a0after launching with a much lower range and much higher price than first promised.<\/p>\n Late last year, Tesla sought to assure the market that its investment story remained fundamentally intact, claiming it was merely going through a rough patch before a\u00a0wave of new models<\/a>\u00a0would accelerate growth thanks to their revolutionary engineering. This would cut the cost of production by half over the current platform that underpins the Model 3 and Y, allowing it to be sold highly profitably despite a\u00a0low entry price<\/a>\u00a0of around $25,000 each.<\/p>\n On April 2, however, cracks began to emerge in that narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n First Tesla shocked the market with\u00a0Q1 delivery figures<\/a>\u00a0that fell well short of even the most bearish forecast. Even Tesla bull Dan Ives called news of Tesla\u2019s first year-on-year contraction in quarterly sales\u00a0since the pandemic<\/a>\u00a0an \u201cunmitigated disaster\u201d that could not simply be explained away.<\/p>\n \u201cWe view this as a seminal moment in the Tesla story,\u201d he wrote on April 2. Either Musk turns the story around, or \u201csome darker days could clearly be ahead that could disrupt the long-term Tesla narrative.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Some 72 hours later, Reuters<\/em> then dropped a bombshell report that Tesla was\u00a0scrapping plans<\/a>\u00a0to build an\u00a0entry level car<\/a> on the promised next-gen vehicle platform. Instead it would prioritize its\u00a0robotaxi model<\/a>\u2014a technology most experts believe is years away from full maturity.<\/p>\n Reuters is lying (again)<\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This pivot sparked widespread alarm that millions of vehicles worth of\u00a0future growth<\/a>\u00a0that underpinned investor valuation models just went up in smoke for no clear reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Initially Musk played down the report, claiming that Reuters<\/em> was not telling the truth. Then out of the blue he announced the Aug. 8 robotaxi unveiling. This nugget of information was enough to put a floor in the stock that prevented a further downward spiral in the price.\u00a0<\/p>\n Days later, the CEO would go on to request that shareholders\u00a0ratify<\/a>\u00a0a record pay package now worth $77 billion, and he\u00a0needed their support<\/a>\u00a0right when Tesla was the\u00a0worst performing stock<\/a>\u00a0in the S&P 500.<\/p>\n By the time Tesla published its Q1 earnings later that month, investors had already made up their minds that Musk had flagged to the market the\u00a0worst was behind it<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n While pushing back the reveal date doesn\u2019t alter that thesis, it does raise the question whether the date had been discussed with anyone in senior management or signed off by Tesla\u2019s board of directors.<\/p>\n Musk did not respond to a request for comment made outside of regular business hours.<\/p>\n Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8\/8<\/p>\n \u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Growth narrative in jeopardy until Musk pulled Robotaxi trump card<\/h2>\n
Robotaxi restored confidence when Musk needed shareholder support<\/h2>\n
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