Elon Musk confirms Tesla's summer plans

Now that CEO Elon Musk is nearing his full-time return to Tesla  (TSLA) , as he promised during the company's first-quarter earnings call, things are starting to look up at the company. 

It just reported its worst quarter in years, with auto sales revenue dropping 20% amid falling demand in the U.S., Europe, and China. In the first quarter, deliveries fell 13% year over year to 336,681 vehicles from 386,810. 

Musk spoke at the Qatar Economic Forum via video conference on Tuesday. His message was clear: Tesla's demand problems are already a thing of the past. 

Related: Elon Musk sends strong message to Tesla stock investors

"Europe is our weakest market, but we're strong everywhere else. Our sales are doing well at this point, and we don't anticipate any sales shortfall," Musk said when asked about Tesla's dismal first quarter. 

Musk said any politically left-leaning buyers who abandoned the company have been replaced by people who more align with his politics.

Tesla's stock price has jumped more than 50% since the earnings release, and ultimately, that is what matters most to investors. 

"Obviously, the stock market recognizes that, since we are back over a trillion-dollar market cap," Musk said. "Clearly, the market is aware of the situation. So it's already turned around." 

This is a clear departure from Musk's view of Tesla's stock price in the past, when he questioned its valuation in 2020, calling the stock price too high. This was back before the stock did a 5:1 split and was trading in the mid-$50s, and the company was valued at less than half of its current trillion-dollar market cap. 

Elon Musk says Tesla robotaxi is coming this summer

It's been a long time coming, but Tesla is finally fulfilling a promise it made to its fans a decade ago. 

Elon Musk first mentioned the concept of a robotaxi in 2016, explaining that Tesla drivers could use their vehicles to earn passive income by allowing them to operate autonomously. 

When the company launched its popular mass-market Model 3 sedan in 2019, Tesla did not allow lessees to purchase the vehicle at the end of the contract terms because, as Musk said, Tesla would need the inventory when it had 1 million robotaxis on the road by the end of 2020.

It turns out Musk's timeline was slightly off, but the CEO confirmed this week in an interview with CNBC that the first batch of fully autonomous Teslas will be hitting the streets of Austin in a mere few weeks. 

Related: Elon Musk's robotaxi ambitions hit with major roadblock

Musk told CNBC that Tesla will have an initial launch of 10 vehicles with a plan to rapidly expand to thousands, should there be no hiccups. 

”It’s prudent for us to start with a small number, confirm that things are going well, and then scale it up,” Musk told CNBC's David Faber. 

The vehicles will be geofenced for safety reasons, meaning Tesla will limit where the cars will travel, but there won’t be a human safety driver in the cars.

“We’ll be watching what the cars are doing very carefully, and as confidence grows, less of that will be needed,” Musk said.

Some in the analyst community remain skeptical. Just two weeks ago, Piper Sandler, which has its highest rating on Tesla, partly due to its robotaxi prospects, said it doesn't believe Tesla robotaxis are ready for the big time yet. 

Tesla will have to rely on its brand recognition and technology to overtake its rivals because there are already many more vehicles on America's streets. 

Tesla's main rival already has a huge head start

Waymo, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, has been testing its autonomous fleet in real-life road situations for years.

Waymo One, the company's ride-sharing app, already registers over a million paid weekly trips across Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, with plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami, and Washington, D.C. in 2026.

Waymo's current fleet features over 1,500 vehicles spread across its four current host cities, but by next year, it expects to more than double its fleet with more than 2,000 new additions.

So Tesla's fleet of 10 vehicles won't really make a dent initially, but it's hoping that even though it is late to the party, it still has the tech to beat its competitors. 

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