Robotaxi Day has arrived, determining the fate of Tesla and the reputation of Musk

On Thursday evening, October 10th local time in California, which is 10:00 am on October 11th Beijing time, Tesla will hold the highly anticipated launch event for its autonomous taxi service Robotaxi, called Robotaxi Day. The physical vehicle known as Cybercab will make its first appearance.

Elon Musk has expressed his strong belief in the transformative power of Robotaxi, deeming it worthy to stake Tesla's financial future on this product. He also predicts that this business could raise Tesla's valuation to $5 trillion. In other words, Tesla is betting its future on the success of Robotaxi. The teaser for the Tesla event also quoted Musk as saying, "This will be a historic day."

Bloomberg reports that Robotaxi Day will have a long-term impact on Tesla and its CEO Musk, significantly affecting Musk's personal reputation.

The reason why Robotaxi Day is crucial for Tesla as a whole and Musk's fate is that a successful event could help alleviate doubts surrounding Musk's autonomous driving strategy, while a repeat of past product launch mistakes could intensify such skepticism. Tesla is already behind some competitors in deploying autonomous vehicles on public roads, and commercializing the Robotaxi business in Tesla's main markets may require regulatory approval over the course of several years. Furthermore, autonomous driving technology is far from perfect.

The significance of Robotaxi Day for Musk's reputation lies in his history of repeatedly delaying product launches. For example, Wall Street Journal previously mentioned that nearly three months ago, Tesla was reported to have postponed the RoboTaxi event from August to October to allow the team responsible for the project more time to produce additional prototypes and redesign certain elements of RoboTaxi.

Moreover, several high-ranking Tesla executives have recently announced their departures. Earlier this week, media reported that in the past week, four executives who announced their departure were all direct subordinates of Musk, including Tesla's Director of Public Policy and Business Development, Jos Dings, and Tesla's Global Director of Automation and Safety Policy, Marc Van Impe. The frequent departure of executives undoubtedly raises doubts in the capital markets about whether Tesla is facing management issues.

According to some media leaks, Robotaxi is a compact two-door, two-seat vehicle similar to the Cybertruck, with butterfly wing-like doors, sharp-edged contours, stainless steel finishes, and possibly no steering wheel. What sets this vehicle apart from other Tesla models is its ability to operate without a human driver present, potentially using a combination of cameras and computing power for navigation, without relying on the lidar sensors used by autonomous driving cars under General Motors' Cruise and Google's WaymoOn Robotaxi Day, Musk believes they are too expensive and unnecessary.

Tesla may also announce progress in autonomous driving technology at Robotaxi Day. Previously, Tesla stated that the capabilities of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software have been accelerating. "Based on current trends, it seems that we should be able to increase the miles between interventions to a level far beyond human, to the point where unsupervised autonomous driving may be achieved by the end of this year."

Bloomberg cited sources saying that Musk is expected to discuss Tesla's plans to develop FSD for its electric truck Semi at Robotaxi Day, as well as how to use this technology for transporting goods, but a Semi demonstration is not expected. He may also provide updates on the development of Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus.

Since Optimus was unveiled in 2022, Tesla has provided almost no updates on its progress. In July this year, Musk revealed on social media that Tesla will start small-scale production of Optimus for internal use next year, with the potential for mass production by other companies in 2026. Research firm Bernstein believes that Tesla may have already updated the progress on Optimus, and the caption "We, Robot" for the Robotaxi Day event may hint at such updates in Tesla's plans