It is a bad sign when any of electric vehicle giant Tesla’s (TSLA) competitors deliver a system that can do things that the Tesla equivalent cannot. Tesla recently saw this happen as Rivian’s (RIVN) built-in artificial intelligence can do things that Grok seems to struggle with, if it can do at all. Investors took the news in stride, though, and gave Tesla stock a fractional boost in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
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Reports note that Rivian Assistant can control several vehicle operations with voice commands, including several points that Grok seems unable to handle. Grok cannot handle media playback functions, or climate control settings, but Rivian Assistant can, reports note. Moreover, Rivian Assistant can change drive modes and adjust ride height, while also addressing troubleshooting in the vehicle itself.
The Rivian system can apparently even learn more about the user, and can do things like summarize local news and handle more complex commands in your own words. For instance, a command to “Make everyone’s seat toasty except mine,” would be understood as activating all but the driver’s side seat heating. If Tesla starts falling behind on features, that crucial “gee-whiz” factor that Tesla has been riding for years will suffer accordingly and potentially be lost.
Unsupervised Robotaxi Counts Are Growing
While there have been some concerns about the total numbers of robotaxis available, it turns out that there have been more cars making their way into circulation. This is good news, particularly for anyone who was concerned about the growing wait times that these rides have seen lately.
Reports note there is actually a Robotaxi Tracker website that follows the number of available robotaxis. According to that site, several new unsupervised robotaxi units have hit the streets in the last few weeks. Reports suggest there are now 39 unsupervised Tesla Robotaxis on the road now, with 27 in Austin. That still seems low, but if the numbers continue their rise, then the issue of a lengthy wait for a robotaxi pickup should be coming to an end.
Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 12 Buys, 12 Holds, and five Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 29.88% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $403.86 per share implies 9.7% downside risk.
