| Thanks for reading Hyperdrive, Bloomberg's newsletter on the future of the auto world. Elon Musk has said it himself, time and time again: Prototypes are easy, production is hard. The expression was only somewhat apt for the occasion of Tesla's highly anticipated robotaxi unveiling late Thursday, an event that was high on Hollywood showmanship and low on substance. Only somewhat because Musk will wake up from his "We, Robot" party with a lot more than just manufacturing challenges to overcome.  A Tesla Cybercab prototype. Source: X/Tesla The butterfly door-boasting Cybercab and art deco-inspired Robovan looked slick, no doubt. But so did the next-generation Roadster prototype that Musk revealed to a rapt audience in 2017. Seven years later, we're still waiting on that car — one that human drivers presumably will still want to come with pedals and a steering wheel. Trying to get a vehicle without those components onto public roads isn't a straightforward process. The US has taken a somewhat light-touch approach to regulating autonomous vehicles — administrators have been reluctant to stifle technology that could save lives and make roads safer. But they haven't let manufacturers run roughshod, either. Consider the experience General Motors went through at Cruise, the carmaker's self-driving unit, which had grand plans years ago to deploy a bread loaf-shaped driverless shuttle called the Origin. GM petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in February 2022 for the Origin to be exempt from certain federal vehicle safety standards, including requirements that cars be equipped with things like steering wheels, pedals, turn signals and mirrors.  Cruise unveiled a prototype of the Origin in January 2020. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg NHTSA didn't act on this request for more than two years, which contributed to GM CEO Mary Barra pulling the plug on the Origin this July. The automaker announced Cruise would focus on retrofitting Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles instead. The main reason for the switch was to "extinguish the regulator risk," Barra said during an earnings call in July: Remember, because the Origin doesn't have steering wheel and some other motor vehicle safety standard components, it doesn't meet motor vehicle safety standards. And that requires a legislative change. We've been working on that. It's been difficult to get done. And with that, if we don't get that legislative change or authorization from a government perspective, we're limited in the number of Origins we could put out. So as we looked at this, we thought it was better to get rid of that risk.
Musk took a shot at Cruise after Barra made those comments, claiming on Tesla's own earnings call later the same day that the real reason GM canceled the Origin was it couldn't get the product to work. "If they're blaming regulators, that's misleading of them to do so, because Waymo is doing just fine in those markets," Musk said. "It's just that their technology is not at par." Those comments belied a seeming ignorance of why Waymo — just like Cruise — has had to retrofit production cars with steering wheels and pedals for its robotaxis, even though those wheels and pedals aren't used in driverless mode. When Tesla investors bid up the company's valuation by several-hundred billion dollars in the months leading up to Thursday's event, they presumably were expecting Musk would exhibit a firm command of these sorts of details. Assuming that's the case, they will have walked away disappointed. TD Cowen analyst Jeff Osborne certainly was, titling his readout from the event: "We, Underwhelmed."  Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares. Photographer: Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images Carlos Tavares managed to survive a disastrous collapse in Stellantis profit by jettisoning his chief financial officer as part of a sweeping overhaul of his leadership team. But the move only elevates the pressure on the 66-year-old executive to fix the automaker's stumbles. With the clock winding down on his nearly five-year tenure, Tavares will have less leverage to address shrinking sales, bloated inventories and a dated US vehicle lineup. The board is already looking for a successor to Tavares when his contract ends in 2026, and the episode has cost the veteran executive hard-won credibility with Wall Street. | 
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