Things are veering way off the road for Tesla.

In the wake of the long-awaited Robotaxi rollout in Austin, Tesla stock saw an initial bump — but those gains weren't able to withstand the ample bad press the autonomous cabs have gotten in the few days they've trawled Texas streets.

On Tuesday, the botched Robotaxi launch led Tesla stock to drop more than four percent and nearly $15 in a single day. That falloff came after videos emerged showing the driverless cabs — which also, embarrassingly, still have human "safety monitors" riding shotgun — breaking traffic laws and driving erratically.

One of the most viral Robotaxi freakouts shows one of the not-exactly-self-driving cabs braking repeatedly when driving near police cars, blowing through an intersection, and swerving into oncoming traffic — all within the brief 20 minutes that the ride was filmed by its backseat passenger.

In another unsettling Robotaxi video, the Model Y's self-driving steering wheel jerks back and forth while plowing through another intersection before careening across a double-yellow line.

The videos weren't only seen by internet critics, but also by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which confirmed to Bloomberg earlier this week that it was aware of the clips and looking into whatever the heck is going on in them.

In an investor note shared with MarketWatch, erstwhile Tesla bull Tom Narayan of RBC Capital Markets pointed out that the inclusion of human safety monitors and remote drivers in the Robotaxi rollout came as a rude surprise to stockholders banking on a revolutionary demo.

"Robotaxis are critical to the Tesla investment case," Narayan wrote. If the company can prove to stockholders (and the rest of the world) that its autonomous driving capabilities are legit, the analyst noted, the company would edge out its competition both in the driverless cab sphere and in EV world. With the way things are going for Tesla, however, that seems like a big "if."

"Only time will tell if this will work," the analyst concluded.

And even if you look past all the drama, it's clear that Tesla's competitor Waymo is blowing it out of the water as it expands service to city after city.

More on Tesla trouble: Cybertruck Burned So Severely That Its Driver's Bones Disintegrated


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