Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the electric car maker is working onNo security guard on duty in the front rowBoosted by the news, Tesla's stock price climbed to its highest point in nearly a year on Monday. Although Tesla's $1.53 trillion market capitalization, the world's most valuable auto company, is largely driven by investors' optimism about its vision for self-driving technology and humanoid robots, the vast majority of the company's revenue and profits still come from selling electric vehicles.
On that day, Tesla’s share price rose as much as 4.9%, hitting $481.37 per share, the highest price in nearly a year.
The stock reached an all-time peak of $488.54 per share on December 18 last year, when the market expected the Trump administration to relax regulatory thresholds for self-driving cars.
In June this year, Tesla launched a limited-area self-driving taxi service in Austin, Texas, using a modified version of the Model Y equipped with a fully autonomous driving system (FSD). The service will initially only cover certain geographical areas and will require a human "safety officer" in the front passenger seat.
Musk posted on the social platform X on Sunday: "Currently working onNo one on boardautonomous driving testing. "
Investors and analysts expect Tesla to ramp up testing and rapidly deploy driverless taxis as it prepares to launch its Cybercab self-driving taxi model next year.
Seth Goldstein, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said: "The news that Tesla is testing driverless self-driving taxis is in line with our expectations - the company's testing work is progressing steadily, which is consistent with management's statement on the third quarter earnings call."
"The market is cheering this development, sending the company's share price higher today."
Tesla has long touted its plans for self-driving taxis, but regulatory obstacles and technical bottlenecks have repeatedly slowed down the project.
As of November this year, Waymo, a self-driving company owned by Google parent company Alphabet, is leading the industry. Its commercial self-driving taxis have been put into operation in many major cities in the United States, with a fleet of more than 2,500 vehicles. The U.S. Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) reported last week that Waymo’s weekly paid orders reached approximately 450,000.
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