⚠ Robotaxi Keeps SlippingHigh threat

The robotaxi and full-autonomy promise at the heart of Tesla's optionality has a long, unbroken history of slipping. Full self-driving has been 'next year' since the mid-2010s — in December 2015 Musk predicted "complete autonomy in approximately two years"¹; in 2019 he said "I feel very confident predicting autonomous robotaxis for Tesla next year", with a million on the road²; and the service that finally launched in 2025 remains small and confined to limited areas — a fraction of what was pledged on timelines long past. Each deferral erodes the credibility of the next promise.

The danger is that the optionality the market pays for could keep receding into a future that never quite arrives. If the generalized autonomy Tesla promises proves years further off — or, on the camera-only approach, not fully achievable — the value the valuation ascribes to robotaxis and autonomy software could deflate, with the compressed margins of the car business offering little to cushion the fall. A perpetually deferred breakthrough is worth less each time it is deferred.

Tesla's defenders point to genuine, accelerating progress and argue the breakthrough, when it comes, will be sudden and sweeping. That may be right, and the upside would be enormous. But an owner should weigh the sheer length of the over-promising, the real possibility that go-anywhere autonomy is harder than Tesla claims, and the fact that so much of the valuation rests on a timeline that has, so far, always proven far too optimistic.