Investor's Corner
Tesla stock: analysts cut targets, mull demand and growth after Q4 miss
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) analysts are responding to the company’s fourth-quarter delivery miss by cutting price targets and mulling over demand and growth.
Tesla reported its delivery and production figures for 2022 and the fourth quarter yesterday, reporting 405,278 deliveries and 439,701 produced during the year’s final three months. Tesla delivered 1,313,851 cars in 2022, producing 1,369,611.
Tesla (TSLA) Q4 and FY 2022 deliveries reach new highs, but below analyst expectations
Analysts expected closer to 415,000 deliveries in Q4. Although Tesla recorded its biggest year to date and its most successful quarter in company history, they are concerned the company could be facing demand issues despite still holding a majority of the U.S. electric vehicle market and performing well in competitive markets like China and Europe.
JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman lowered his price target on Tesla from $150 to $125 while noting to clients that subsequent delivery misses could be potentially detrimental to the long-term outlook on the stock.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives said Tesla and Musk should outline attainable and realistic delivery targets in 2023. Ives believes 40 percent delivery growth in 2023 would be “respectable,” but the miss in Q4 does not present any super positive connotations as Tesla heads into the new year. “A miss is a miss,” he said.
Goldman Sachs also reduced its Tesla price target from $235 to $205. However, one of its main concerns was whether Tesla could combat potential demand slumps, which it said in its note to investors that it believes the automaker can recover, with indicators pointing to Q2 2023, the firm said.
Morgan Stanley reiterated its $250 price target. “Tesla’s 4Q deliveries, while slightly higher than we had expected, are broadly consistent with our views that EV supply may be recovering faster than EV demand, reflecting a material narrative change in the scarcity of EVs on a global basis,” Adam Jonas said.
Morgan Stanley expected Tesla to deliver 399,000 units in Q4.
2023: Make or Break year for Tesla?
2023 has plenty of catalysts for Tesla, at least according to the company’s own agenda. This year, Tesla plans to launch production of the Cybertruck, announce a new Gigafactory location in North America, and update the Model 3 sedan.
Cybertruck production will be limited at first but is scheduled to hit “mass production” by the end of the year. While significant impacts on Tesla’s delivery numbers will likely not be made by the Cybertruck this year, the rollout of the vehicle will be monumental as it recently reached a two-year delay. Slated to begin deliveries in late 2020, Tesla delayed production as it navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. Production was delayed further while Tesla focused on scaling production of the Model Y at Gigafactory Texas and withstood uncertain economic tides in 2022.
New Gigafactory locations, especially in North America, could prove to be a significant catalyst for the stock as it would indicate demand strengthening for Tesla. Reports have suggested Mexico will end up being the location for Tesla’s next production facility, but the company has not confirmed this.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
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Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) just got a price target boost from its biggest bear, Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research, who raised his expected trading level to one that is 95 percent lower than its current trading level.
Johnson pushed his Tesla price target from $19.05 to $25.28 on Wednesday, while maintaining the ‘Sell’ rating that has been present on the stock for a long time. GLJ has largely been recognized as the biggest skeptic of Elon Musk’s company, being particularly critical of the automotive side of things.
Tesla has routinely been called out by Johnson for negative delivery growth, what he calls “weakening demand,” and price cuts that have occurred in past years, all pointing to them as desperate measures to sell its cars.
Johnson has also said that Tesla is extremely overvalued and is too reliant on regulatory credits for profitability. Other analysts on the bullish side recognize Tesla as a company that is bigger than just its automotive side.
Many believe it is a leader in autonomous driving, like Dan Ives of Wedbush, who believes Tesla will have a widely successful 2026, especially if it can come through on its targets and schedules for Robotaxi and Cybercab.
Justifying the price target this week, Johnson said that the revised valuation is based on “reality rather than narrative.” Tesla has been noted by other analysts and financial experts as a stock that trades on narrative, something Johnson obviously disagrees with.
Dan Nathan, a notorious skeptic of the stock, turned bullish late last year, recognizing the company’s shares trade on “technicals and sentiment.” He said, “From a trading perspective, it looks very interesting.”
Tesla bear turns bullish for two reasons as stock continues boost
Johnson has remained very consistent with this sentiment regarding Tesla and his beliefs regarding its true valuation, and has never shied away from putting his true thoughts out there.
Tesla shares closed at $431.40 today, about 95 percent above where Johnson’s new price target lies.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock received a price target update from Pierre Ferragu of Wall Street firm New Street Research, citing the company’s growing lead in self-driving and autonomy.
On Tuesday, Ferragu bumped his price target from $520 to $600, stating that the consensus from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was that Tesla’s lead in autonomy has been sustained, is growing, and sits at a multiple-year lead over its competitors.
CES 2026 validates Tesla’s FSD strategy, but there’s a big lag for rivals: analyst
“The signal from Vegas is loud and clear,” the analyst writes. “The industry isn’t catching up to Tesla; it is actively validating Tesla’s strategy…just with a 12-year lag.”
The note shows that the company’s prowess in vehicle autonomy is being solidified by lagging competitors that claim to have the best method. The only problem is that Tesla’s Vision-based approach, which it adopted back in 2022 with the Model 3 and Model Y initially, has been proven to be more effective than competitors’ approach, which utilizes other technology, such as LiDAR and sensors.
Currently, Tesla shares are sitting at around $433, as the company’s stock price closed at $432.96 on Tuesday afternoon.
Ferragu’s consensus on Tesla shares echoes that of other Wall Street analysts who are bullish on the company’s stock and position within the AI, autonomy, and robotics sector.
Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a note in mid-December that he anticipates Tesla having a massive 2026, and could reach a $3 trillion valuation this year, especially with the “AI chapter” taking hold of the narrative at the company.
Ives also said that the big step in the right direction for Tesla will be initiating production of the Cybercab, as well as expanding on the Robotaxi program through the next 12 months:
“…as full-scale volume production begins with the autonomous and robotics roadmap…The company has started to test the all-important Cybercab in Austin over the past few weeks, which is an incremental step towards launching in 2026 with important volume production of Cybercabs starting in April/May, which remains the golden goose in unlocking TSLA’s AI valuation.”
Tesla analyst breaks down delivery report: ‘A step in the right direction’
Tesla has transitioned from an automaker to a full-fledged AI company, and its Robotaxi and Cybercab programs, fueled by the Full Self-Driving suite, are leading the charge moving forward. In 2026, there are major goals the company has outlined. The first is removing Safety Drivers from vehicles in Austin, Texas, one of the areas where it operates a ride-hailing service within the U.S.
Ultimately, Tesla will aim to launch a Level 5 autonomy suite to the public in the coming years.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Q4 delivery numbers are better than they initially look: analyst
The Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner shared his thoughts in a post on his website.
Longtime Tesla analyst and Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner Gene Munster has shared his insights on Tesla’s Q4 2025 deliveries. As per the analyst, Tesla’s numbers are actually better than they first appear.
Munster shared his thoughts in a post on his website.
Normalized December Deliveries
Munster noted that Tesla delivered 418k vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2025, slightly below Street expectations of 420k but above the whisper number of 415k. Tesla’s reported 16% year-over-year decline, compared to +7% in September, is largely distorted by the timing of the tax credit expiration, which pulled forward demand.
“Taking a step back, we believe September deliveries pulled forward approximately 55k units that would have otherwise occurred in December or March. For simplicity, we assume the entire pull-forward impacted the December quarter. Under this assumption, September growth would have been down ~5% absent the 55k pull-forward, a Deepwater estimate tied to the credit’s expiration.
“For December deliveries to have declined ~5% year over year would imply total deliveries of roughly 470k. Subtracting the 55k units pulled into September results in an implied December delivery figure of approximately 415k. The reported 418k suggests that, when normalizing for the tax credit timing, quarter-over-quarter growth has been consistently down ~5%. Importantly, this ~5% decline represents an improvement from the ~13% declines seen in both the March and June 2025 quarters.“
Tesla’s United States market share
Munster also estimated that Q4 as a whole might very well show a notable improvement in Tesla’s market share in the United States.
“Over the past couple of years, based on data from Cox Automotive, Tesla has been losing U.S. EV market share, declining to just under 50%. Based on data for October and November, Cox estimates that total U.S. EV sales were down approximately 35%, compared to Tesla’s just reported down 16% for the full quarter. For the first two months of the quarter, Cox reported Tesla market share of roughly a 65% share, up from under 50% in the September quarter.
“While this data excludes December, the quarter as a whole is likely to show a material improvement in Tesla’s U.S. EV market share.“
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