Tesla officially launched a limited robotaxi ride-hailing service on June 22 in Austin, Texas, but its been relatively quiet in terms of plans since then. That changed late Wednesday when CEO Elon Musk claimed Tesla plans to expand the service. TSLA stock advanced higher Thursday.
Musk wrote on his social media platform X Wednesday night that the EV giant's robotaxi ride-hailing service will be "expanding" to a "larger service area in Austin this weekend." Meanwhile, Musk added that Tesla plans to have robotaxi Model Y vehicles on the roads in the Bay Area of California soon.
"Waiting on regulatory approvals, but probably in a month or two," Musk wrote on X late Wednesday.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a longtime Tesla bull, wrote Thursday that Musk's comments were "positive relative to the recent shift in investor sentiment regarding Tesla's autonomous vehicle efforts."
Tesla stock surged 4.7% to 309.87 at the close of Thursday's stock market after falling about 0.7% to 295.88 on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Musk's artificial intelligence business xAI launched Grok 4, the latest version of the AI model, late on Wednesday. There was no mention of Grok being integrated into Tesla vehicles during the presentation. However, Musk posted Thursday morning to X that "Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest."
Tesla stock on Monday sank 6.8% to 293.94. The session marked a decisive return to below the stock's converged 200-day and 50-day moving averages. Last week, Tesla stock fell 2.6% to 315.35, also undercutting those key levels.
The decline leaves what had looked like a possible base-building effort by TSLA shares paused for now.
The stock initially soared after the robotaxi launch. However, overall Tesla stock is down about 4% since the June 22 service release.
Tesla Deliveries Expected To Decline
Last week, the EV giant reported 384,122 second-quarter vehicle deliveries, slightly below analyst consensus but not as low as some feared. The total was down 13.5% compared to a year ago while overall vehicle production ran nearly flat vs. a year earlier, when Tesla produced 410,831 EVs.
Before the deliveries release, Forbes reported that Musk fired Omead Afshar, Tesla's head of operations in North America and Europe. Afshar began at Tesla in 2011 and, during his tenure, reportedly became one of Musk's top lieutenants and most trusted allies.
At the end of last year, as Tesla predicted 20%-30% EV delivery growth in 2025, the Q2 consensus was 502,000 vehicles. Analysts forecast full-year deliveries declining 7% to 1.66 million, according to FactSet.
Tesla is now highlighting on its website that the Biden-era $7,500 EV tax credit disappears on Sept. 30 in an effort to drum up vehicle sales in the third quarter.
In a May 20 interview at Bloomberg's Qatar Economic Forum in Abu Dhabi, Musk said Tesla was not having any demand issues.
"We've lost some sales perhaps on the left but we've gained them on the right," Musk said, referring to where consumers place along the political spectrum. Musk's involvement with the controversial Department Of Government Efficiency had stirred protests and boycotts among those on the left.
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"The sales numbers at this point are strong and we see no problem with demand," he said.
"Our stock wouldn't be trading near all-time highs if things weren't in good shape, they're fine, don't worry about it," Musk added at the time when TSLA shares were 29% below the all-time high of 488.54.
Tesla reports Q2 earnings and revenue late on July 23. The EV giant also has scheduled its annual shareholder meeting for Nov. 6, 2025, according to federal filings.
Tesla Stock Performance
The stock rallied from late April to late May in part because Musk said he was backing away from politics and the Trump administration. However, since then, Tesla stock has tumbled and rebounded according to the Musk-Trump news cycle.
The July 1 low of 293.21 is a short-term level to watch as is the June 5 low of 273.21.
Stocks To Buy And Watch: Top IPOs, Big And Small Caps, Growth Stocks
Tesla stock at Thursday's stock market close was up 30% since the April 22 Q1 conference call, lifted by robotaxi bets. Shares are down about 23% for the year, and 36% below their all-time high of 488.54.
Tesla stock has a 21-day average true range of 4.58%. The ATR metric, available on IBD's MarketSurge charting tool, gauges the characteristic breadth of a stock's behavior. Stocks that tend to make large jumps or dives in daily stock market action, the kind that can trigger sell rules and shake investors out of a stock, have a high ATR. Stocks that tend to make more incremental moves have lower ATRs.
Investors can keep tabs on the IBD Leaderboard watchlist, the IBD 50 list of top growth stocks and IBD SwingTrader along with the IBD Sector Leaders list.
Tesla stock has a 53 Composite Rating out of a best-possible 99. The stock also has a 69 Relative Strength Rating and a 59 EPS Rating.
Please follow Kit Norton on X @KitNorton for more coverage.
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