Investor Gary Black, managing director at The Future Fund LLC, thinks the catalyst for Tesla Inc.'s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Robotaxi would be the removal of the onboard safety operators.
Tesla Close To Achieving Unsupervised Autonomy
In a post on social media platform X on Tuesday, the investor said that Tesla had underperformed the S&P 500 Index (SPX) as well as the NASDAQ 100 Index (NDX) and Magnificent Seven companies, despite Tesla and a few autonomous companies being "close to achieving unsupervised autonomy," Black said.
The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) and Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which track the S&P 500 index and Nasdaq 100 index, are up 16.29% and 21.67% year-to-date, respectively. On the other hand, the Elon Musk-led EV giant is up 6.29% year-to-date.
"The major catalyst for TSLA is now removal of safety monitors in all Robotaxis," Black said, adding that such a move would signal a scale-up for the autonomous cab operations.
It's worth noting that Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently shared that the company is targeting driverless operations in the city of Austin by the end of the year. Musk also recently shared that the number of Robotaxis in the city would be doubled in number.
FSD Improvements, European Expansion
The news comes as Black had previously praised the FSD system's v14 update, which the investor said was a big step up from the previous versions. Black also outlined that Tesla's FSD Critical Disengagements had gone down, an indicator of its improvements. FSD has also been hailed by Ross Gerber, co-founder of Gerber Kawasaki, who acknowledged that the system was better, but highlighted mapping issues with the technology.
The automaker is also offering free Supervised FSD rides to customers across multiple countries in Europe, like Germany, France and Italy, through the end of the year amid a planned expansion of the technology in the region in February 2026.
Tesla scores well on the Momentum metric, while offering satisfactory Quality and Growth, but poor Value. Tesla also has a favourable price trend in the Medium and Long term. For more such insights, sign up for Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings today!
Price Action: TSLA slipped 0.21% to $429.24 at Market close, further declining 0.32% to $427.85 in the After-hours session, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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