Musk plays with fire, robotaxis postponed and thud on Wall Street

For a long time Elon Musk has been playing catch-up with autonomous driving. Five years ago, the CEO of Tesla announced that autonomous driving would arrive soon and robotaxis in 2020. Autonomous driving is not yet with us, although the software package of assisted driving capabilities known as Full Self-Driving has progressed and is about to debut in China, thanks in part to a agreement to use Baidu's maps At the same time, the US Department of Justice is investigating whether Tesla misled consumers and investors about the capabilities of its so-called autonomous driving. And that is not the only open file.

As for the robotaxis, they had been announced on 5 April - the presentation was scheduled for 8 August - when, according to an indiscretion by the Reuters agency, the car manufacturer with the largest capitalisation decided to abandon the project of the Model 2, the cheap Tesla, so to speak: price around 25 thousand dollars, designed for the mass market and to give a boost to sales targets, which were lowered, in the absence of new models. Musk had called Reuters journalists liars and pulled the robotaxi idea out of his hat.

Now the mystery deepens. Tesla has postponed the launch of the robotaxi by about two months, to October, as the design team has reportedly been asked to rework some elements of the car. No comment from Austin. Tesla's shares, which has made its reputation as a tech company rather than a car company one of its strengths in the markets, fell nearly 8 per cent following the news, ending 11 consecutive sessions of gains that had lifted the stock 44 per cent to the $250 area and the market cap to nearly $800 billion. The share price recovery was also accelerated by the confirmation of the mega-multi-billion dollar remuneration package that shareholders had confirmed at the annual shareholders' meeting in mid-June. This was a crucial confirmation, given that the CEO had made it clear that he was determined to give up Tesla by taking the artificial intelligence projects with him if he was not guaranteed the package and thus a decidedly stronger grip on the shareholder base and greater freedom of initiative.

"Tesla has been playing this game for almost a decade by promising 'next year, next year'. And I have seen no indication that Tesla is on track for a meaningful implementation of the kind of automated driving system it has consistently promised," commented Bryant Walker Smith, a professor at the University of South Carolina and an expert on autonomous vehicle regulations.

Apart from announcing the unveiling date, Musk has so far provided few details about the robotaxi. He has only said that some vehicles will be owned and operated by Tesla, while others will be privately owned but rented on Tesla's network.