Tesla shares slide 5.92% as Cybercab underwhelms and NHTSA opens a probe
Tesla shares fell 5.92% to close at $354.08 on September 4 as Wall Street called the Cybercab reveal underwhelming and NHTSA opened a formal audit — erasing most of the prior day’s 5.42% rally (to $376.37) on robotaxi launch optimism.
Tesla's September 3 Cybercab event in Austin was invite-only, wasn't livestreamed, lasted roughly 15 minutes, and Elon Musk never appeared. Service then rolled out the next day, September 4, starting at 5 p.m. CT but only in a limited section of Austin and only for part of the day — prompting a "limited launch" read from investors.
Analyst reaction was uniformly negative. Wells Fargo's Colin Langan reiterated a Sell rating and a $130 price target, implying roughly 63% downside from current levels, while GLJ Research's Gordon Johnson kept his Sell rating and a starkly bearish $24.86 target, noting Tesla gave no rollout timeline, pricing, or way for consumers to order a ride.
Morgan Stanley had warned ahead of the event that a meaningful rollout of unsupervised driving would let the stock "regain momentum," but that an underwhelming showing would produce a muted-to-negative reaction (it kept its Equal-Weight rating and $400 target) — this decline reads as that warning playing out.
Compounding the letdown, NHTSA opened a formal audit (AQ26002) into roughly 1,000 Cybercabs that same day (see the separate card for details), adding regulatory uncertainty just as the robotaxi business was moving into commercial operation.
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