Tesla's Cybercab launch event disappoints

Tesla showed off its Cybercab robotaxi in Austin, and the rollout looked thin enough to worry investors rather than excite them.

• The launch was invite-only, with NDAs and no live stream, so almost nobody outside a hand-picked crowd saw the car in action.
• The two-seat gold cars have no steering wheel, no pedals, no mirrors and no door handles, raising real questions about whether they can be legally driven on public roads.
• Children are barred from riding, and the promotional pitch for wheelchair users showed riders loading their own wheelchair — a use case the design does not actually solve.
• Only a few dozen cars are registered in Texas, and rides are limited to a small slice of Austin.
• Tesla is falling behind rivals: Uber and Waymo are expanding abroad, and US carmakers are pushing Congress to ban Chinese vehicles instead of competing.

Outlook: Expect more polished, heavily edited footage from Tesla soon, but the gap between the promise and a working robotaxi business looks wide.