Tesla’s Robotaxi Has Plenty of Believers

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 24, 9:45AM EDT

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Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock rose when the company said its new self-driving robotaxi was on the road in Austin.
The success of this self-driving experiment is crucial to the EV company’s future.

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Tesla’s Robotaxi Has Plenty of Believers — © Xiaolu Chu / Getty Images News via Getty Images

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA | TSLA Price Prediction) stock made a big move when the company said its new self-driving robotaxi was on the road in Austin. It is the first public test of the technology. Tesla’s stock added 8% on the announcement. That has helped it recover from a huge sell-off that ran from February to early May. The shares hit $357 yesterday, well up from a $222 share price in March. With a current market cap of $1.3 trillion, Tesla is worth more than all other publicly traded car companies in the world combined.

It is impossible to exaggerate what Tesla’s experiment means to its future, and how much the EV company and its investors have on the line. Tesla aims to demonstrate that its AI-based self-driving technology is significantly superior to that of any competitor. Among those competitors that are well along in testing is Google’s Waymo, which is conducting tests in several cities.

Tesla is attempting to move beyond its current Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system. Tesla claims this is the industry standard, but it still requires a driver’s attention. If it can build a car that needs no driver, it will be the first commercial car company to do so. Such a product would revolutionize the entire industry.

Tesla adds two other factors to its case. Its technology has recorded millions and millions of miles accumulated by its cars across America’s roads. No other car company has this data inventory to enhance self-driving software. It also said it can update most of its cars with the new self-driving car technology via a software download that requires no visit to a dealership.

Tesla stock has a long way to go to reach its $426 all-time high set in December 2024. Since then, its sales have eroded in the United States and Europe. Several Chinese EV companies are the leaders in market share in the world’s largest EV market.

Tesla also has to recover from a sales crater created by CEO Elon Musk’s relationship with President Trump and the sharp federal cost cuts he tried to make as that relationship grew.

Slumping sales and Trump issues will disappear if Tesla really has the first self-driving car in history.

Wall Street Price Prediction: Tesla’s Share Price Forecast for 2025

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.