Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares are putting the pedal to the floor in Monday’s regular trading session following the company’s robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas.
What To Know: Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced in a post on X that Tesla’s robotaxi launch in Austin was “successful.” The EV maker officially kicked off robotaxi rides on Sunday through an invitation-only event that involved a limited number of riders.
“Super congratulations to the @Tesla_AI software & chip design teams on a successful @Robotaxi launch!! Culmination of a decade of hard work,” Musk said in the post.
Some of the invitees included Tesla shareholders and long-time promoters of the company often seen posting on X. Riders were charged a flat fee of $4.20 per ride, Musk said in an X post.
Musk told CNBC's David Faber in an interview last month that he expected the company to have about 1,000 driverless vehicles on the roads within a few months of launch. He further estimated that Tesla could have hundreds of thousands of vehicles capable of unsupervised full self-driving on the roads by the end of next year, "if not over a million."
In a CNBC interview on Monday, Wedbush’s Dan Ives predicted that Tesla will quickly expand the robotaxi rollout to 25 to 30 cities within a year. He added that autonomous driving is worth $1 trillion alone for Tesla’s valuation.
Ives was among those who attended the robotaxi launch in Austin over the weekend. In a new note to clients, he said the launch exceeded his expectations.
“Going into it, we expected to be impressed but walking away from it, all there is to say is that this is the future,” Ives said in the note.
“To really put it into perspective, there was a moment where we drove up a narrow road going up a hill with cars parked on both sides with oncoming traffic and people opening their car doors into the road and the Robotaxi masterfully maneuvered with patience and safety among this chaos.”
Ives maintained an Outperform rating on Tesla shares with a 12-month price target of $500.
Other analysts don’t appear to be as impressed with UBS maintaining a Sell, while lifting its target to $215, and Guggenheim reiterating a Sell and price target of $175.
Guggenheim analysts believe robotaxi expectations are already embedded in the company’s “lofty” valuation. Guggenheim noted that it needs to see the rollout accelerate into the end of the year in order to justify Tesla’s stock price.
The Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares (NASDAQ:TSLL) was up about 19.5% at last check, per Benzinga Pro.
TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares were up 9.83% at $354.22 at the time of publication Monday, according to Benzinga Pro.
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