Tesla | We, Robot
Dreamers will dream.
Here’s everything you need to know about Tesla before we start.
I long hesitated between setting up an alarm at 3 AM to watch the future live or not, but I finally decided to sleep in and have a breakMusk to discover it all - I'm proud of this one. But it turned out to be a short breakMusk as the presentation was only 20 minutes and didn't fulfill my expectations… nor the market's as the stock is down -6% for now, a normal reaction in my opinion.
Before being harsh, I want to stress a few things. First, Elon isn't a showman and Tesla aren't the best at doing presentations. This indirectly kinda hurts the event. Second, I 100% understand the difference between watching on YouTube and being there, interacting with the products. I am sure those who were there have a different conclusion than mine.
That being said, let’s dive in.
Introduction.
A lot was at play during this presentation as Tesla needed to convince a part - maybe the bigger part, of the market that it was still a serious company and not just storytellers. I personally am half satisfied and half disappointed, and I can clearly express reasons for both.
On the bright side, they presented finished & functional products while repeating (once more) the bull case for robotics & autonomy and how important both are to improve life quality. The dreamers - myself included, will love this, and this stays the bull case for investing in Tesla exactly as I expressed in the investment case. Tesla is a stock for dreamers.
On the dark side, the business side… We had nothing. Even worse, we had some more promises from Elon which we kind of know cannot be trusted, at all. They presented shiny objects but didn't give anything tangible, and we get out of this event with visuals, a product, and a bull case we already knew.
I can already see the narrative after this event: More empty promises. I'll try to comment on everything which was presented through these two lenses: the dreamer & the pragmatic.
Cyber Cab.
Let’s start with the most important subject.
This doesn't disappoint although, as with any product from Tesla, you either love it or hate it.
Wanna Ride'?
Besides personal tastes, the product is sick & revolutionary as it is entirely designed to be autonomous.
Exclusively powered by FSD, no pedals nor steering wheel, nothing but the usual big screen in the middle of the car. Use the app, press where you want to go, and relax. Charged through induction, which means the car can do it itself without the need to plug in anything, exactly how the future should be and having working prototypes make it closer than ever.
“Yes you’ll be able to buy one. And we expect the cost to be below $30,000.”
This was the big deal. There were lots of speculations on the street that the Cyber Cab and the affordable Tesla model would be the same product. This was confirmed.
No Tangible Information.
The single most important word is "expect". As usual, Musk's expectations aren't to be taken seriously and he said it himself during the presentation, so we honestly have no idea about the price… nor the availability. Elon said that production will start before 2027.
It is just so very hard to trust someone who has a history of being untrustworthy - I mean with timeframes here, and his phrasing during the presentation didn't reassure me. There were no certitudes, never.
Regulation.
The second question is about regulations. If you read me often, you certainly understood by now that I don’t have much love for institutions or regulators, but we live in a world where they control everything. Even if production starts before 2027, we'd need regulators to approve a car that humans have no control over. Gonna be tricky when FSD works wonders since years but still isn't regulated to be unsupervised.
Elon made the parallel with elevators which used to be controlled by humans before being fully automated, and I understand and agree with him: this is the future. But personal opinions do not matter with institutions.
We saw a prototype… but we already saw it years ago and the fact that it works on FSD without a steering wheel comes as no surprise. I love it and I trust Tesla will release this… eventually, for a certain price. Nothing new.
Markets hate uncertainties, right?
Robovan.
This might have been the biggest surprise of the presentation.
We've been presented another working prototype which is pretty awesome if you ask me. The goal here is not at all to replace metros or trams. The goal is to replace buses where you get to choose starting points & destinations. This bad boy can carry up to 20 people and is basically a bigger Cyber Cab. Once again, you love or hate the design, there’s no middle ground.
I won't go over the arguments again as they're the same than for the cyber cab. Another shiny product without any indication on production, cost, timelines, nor regulation although we all understand how valuable it could be.
Full-Self Driving.
The best information came here as we are finally talking about unsupervised FSD, starting next year in Texas & California. This is a real first step to better regulation and a potential inclusion of the products presented above in the real world. Or if anything, an awesome opportunity to prove that Tesla's FSD is the best & safest autonomous system out there.
Although truth is, even if the U.S. were to accept unsupervised FSD, Tesla will now have to fight with regulators to commercialize a car without pedals or steering wheels…
Optimus.
The robot was well advertised during the event; I'll give it to Tesla's teams. We had some displays and spectators were even able to interact with them live, streamed to the world. I don't think we've ever seen an AI-powered humanoid robots used in real-world situations. Once more, this proves to me that Tesla's products are above competition, even if not perfect yet.
You won't have an efficient service with them. But if they're capable of doing that, imagine how helpful they could be in factories, working on tasks they can take their time while leveraging AI.
To the pragmatic, we had nothing despite this display - which is more than nothing this time, even for a pragmatic, as we clearly saw improvements & real-world interactions. But that's about it, besides more predictions.
“At scale, this would cost probably $20,000 - $30,000. Less than a car, long term.”
Notice “probably” where we had “expect” earlier on.
Dreamers Will Dream.
And… That's about it.
If you're hungry for more, don't worry, I am too. But you won't have anything else. There were more talks about the importance & value of robotization & automation but we already know all of this.
We know that having the cyber cab & van would free up time for drivers, time which could be spent on more productive purposes. We also know that a fully robotized car industry would free up space in cities as parking would be less necessary, would reduce the dangerosity of driving as FSD is a tireless robot trained on more experience than any driver can have in a lifetime, or that they would fluidify traffic & reduce global pollution by being electric & optimized.
We also know how a humanoid robot could be beneficial for millions of humans working at hard labor jobs or how drastically it would reduce costs of everything as an Optimus robot would cost much less than man-hours or simply help in households and improve life quality.
We knew all of this already, and I personally tuned into this presentation because I wanted to learn what I didn't know. But the truth is, I didn't learn anything, and that's what the market will remember of the 10/10… A showcase of prototype we already heard about without any tangible information.
But I am still a dreamer, and I'll continue dreaming.