'This is the future behind it': Wedbush analyst Ives tested Tesla's robotaxis

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, known for his optimism about Tesla, tested Ilon Musk's company's robotaxi over the weekend during the project's long-awaited launch in Austin, Texas. Ives was pleased with the ride and said it's the future. So far, the service is not working for the general public, and the company selected loyal investors and inluencers for the presentation, and there was even a glitch during the test rides. Tesla shares, however, soared in trading on Monday.

Prominent Tesla supporter Wedbush analyst Dan Ives tested the company's unmanned cab in Austin on June 22 and was impressed, CNBC reports. He took two 15-minute rides as part of a presentation on the project and said Tesla's robotaxi exceeded his expectations. «We already thought it was going to be impressive,» Ives noted. - But after the ride, one thing we can say is that this is what the future is all about.» He described it as «comfortable,» «safe» and «personalized,» noting that the car accurately identified his location and pulled up alongside him. Although there was a Tesla operator in the front seat, Ives said he did not interfere or comment in any way during the ride.

«The ride was completely smooth and nothing gave away the driver's absence - at no point did the car behave illogically,» Ives said in the note, as quoted by CNBC. He added that passengers in the back seat could connect their Tesla accounts via the touchscreen and synchronize the Robotaxi app. This then opened up access to content from services such as Netflix, Spotify and Hulu. Ives called the Robotaxi launch «the beginning of Tesla's artificial intelligence era.» In his opinion, when there are many such cars, they will be able to share data with each other and thus make traveling even more efficient.

After the trip, Ives reiterated an Overweight rating for Tesla shares, equivalent to a buy recommendation on them, and his $500 target price remains the highest on Wall Street, CNBC notes. That target implies a 55% rise in quotes from Friday's closing level.

Tesla shares were up a moderate 1.5% in early trading on June 23, but then soared more than 9% to $351.5.

Since the beginning of 2025, however, they remain down 15%, which is still one of the worst results among the «Magnificent Seven» players. By comparison, the main US stock index, the S&P 500, has added around 1.5% over the same period.

Tesla on Sunday conducted the first test rides in its long-awaited unmanned cabs - for a project that Ilon Musk calls a transformation of the entire business, Bloomberg reports. However, the launch was very low-key: it was held without a gala event or official announcements, the agency adds. For the first rides, the company invited a group of loyal retail investors and popular bloggers who broadcast their impressions live. The tests themselves looked ordinary, Bloomberg notes: Model Y electric cars drove short routes, stopped at intersections, bypassed pedestrians and parked - all without driver assistance. However, not without failures: one of the streamliners pressed the button to stop, and the car instead of pulling over to the curb, froze for a while in the middle of the road, and then continued driving.

The first robotaxi users will pay a flat rate of $4.2 per ride, and the service will operate from 6 a.m. to midnight within a limited area of Austin, excluding the airport, Bloomberg describes. In bad weather, the service may be limited or completely unavailable.

Tesla has not yet announced when it will open the robotaxi to the general public, but Musk has promised to scale the project quickly and expand it to other U.S. cities. He is gradually refocusing Tesla on new technologies that have yet to prove cost-effective - such as unmanned cars and humanoid robots, Bloomberg points out. Some investors are pinning their hopes on these areas, expecting them to help the company get out of the sales slump and restore the company's reputation, damaged by a number of scandalous actions of the CEO himself.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor