01:55 PM EDT, 09/19/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Tesla's (TSLA) upcoming robotaxi is not expected to see a wide-scale deployment "within the coming years" amid potential regulatory and other hurdles, UBS Securities said Thursday.

The electric vehicle maker postponed its robotaxi product unveil by a couple of months to Oct. 10, Chief Executive Elon Musk said on a conference call in July discussing the company's second-quarter financial results. "Moving it back a few months allowed us to improve the robotaxi, as well as adding a couple of other things for the product unveil."

Earlier this month, Tesla indicated that Full Self-Driving, or FSD, version 12.5.2 will have about three times improved miles between necessary interventions, while its version 13 will have double that capacity, UBS said in a Thursday note to clients. "This sounds impressive, but the challenge is we don't have FSD intervention data so it's tough to measure how far away Tesla is from a true robotaxi ready product," analysts Joseph Spak and Patrick Hummel said. "Our analysis shows it may still have a ways to go."

FSD is a driver assistance software offered by Tesla.

The company previously indicated that the robotaxi would pursue an unboxed manufacturing process. "We believe there have been delays/challenges with this process, which also leads us to believe the vehicle is still a few years away," Spak and Hummel wrote. If the vehicle doesn't have a steering wheel, the company would need to acquire a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards exception, according to the analysts.

"We believe (a wide-scale) Tesla robotaxi deployment is unlikely within the coming years," the duo wrote. "That is not to say Tesla isn't making technological progress, but Tesla needs to show that the tech is ready and safe, deal with a myriad of local regulations (city by city), and (potentially) figure out logistics and operations of a transportation network company."

The analysts said they would err on the side of the company not showing a lower-cost vehicle at the event as it may be "too far ahead" of production or launch, and Tesla may not want to hurt sales of its Models 3 and Y.

"We haven't heard of any reports of taking down existing lines which we believe may be necessary to launch the new vehicle," Spak and Hummel said. "We don't expect (a $25,000) Tesla, but we wouldn't rule out seeing some Optimus robots" at the event.

While Tesla is likely to run a robotaxi service on its own, "we wouldn't say it's not possible that they also pursue a path" with an established transportation network company such as Uber Technologies ( UBER ) , the analysts said.

Tesla shares were up 7.3% in Thursday afternoon trade. Uber ( UBER ), which signed an exclusive multi-year delivery partnership with Darden Restaurants (DRI), rose 3%.

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