Tesla analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush released a new note on Friday morning just after the company released production and delivery figures for Q4 and the full year of 2025, stating that the numbers, while slightly underwhelming, are “better than feared” and as “a step in the right direction.”

Tesla reported production of 434,358 and deliveries of 418,227 for the fourth quarter, while 1,654,667 vehicles were produced and 1,636,129 cars were delivered for the full year.

Tesla releases Q4 and FY 2025 vehicle delivery and production report

Interestingly, the company posted its own consensus figures that were compiled from various firms on its website a few days ago, where expectations were set at 1,640,752 cars for the year. Tesla fell about 4,000 units short of that. One of the areas where Tesla excelled was energy deployments, which totaled 46.7 GWh for the year.

🚨 Wedbush’s Dan Ives has released a new note on Tesla $TSLA:

“Tesla announced its FY4Q25 delivery numbers this morning coming in at 418.2k vehicles slightly below the company’s consensus delivery estimate of 422.9k but much better than the whisper numbers of ~410k as the…

— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 2, 2026

In terms of vehicle deliveries, Ives writes that Tesla certainly has some things to work through if it wants to return to growth in that aspect, especially with the loss of the $7,500 tax credit in the U.S. and “continuous headwinds” for the company in Europe.

However, Ives also believes that, given the delivery numbers, which were on par with expectations, Tesla is positioned well for a strong 2026, especially with its AI focus, Robotaxi and Cybercab development, and energy:

“This will be viewed as better than feared deliveries and a step in the right direction for the Tesla story heading into 2026. We look forward to hearing more at the company’s 4Q25 call on January 28th. AI Valuation – The Focus Throughout 2026. We believe Tesla could reach a $2 trillion market cap over the coming year and, in a bull case scenario, $3 trillion by the end of 2026…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.”

It’s no secret that for the past several years, Tesla’s vehicle delivery numbers have been the main focus of investors and analysts have looked at them as an indicator of company health to a certain extent. The problem with that narrative in 2025 and 2026 is that Tesla is now focusing more on the deployment of Full Self-Driving, its Optimus project, AI development, and Cybercab.

While vehicle deliveries still hold importance, it is more crucial to note that Tesla’s overall environment as a business relies on much more than just how many cars are purchased. That metric, to a certain extent, is fading in importance in the grand scheme of things, but it will never totally disappear.

Ives and Wedbush maintained their $600 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating on the stock.

Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.

The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.

Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.

This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.

Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing

It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.

Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.

The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.

However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.

Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.

Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.

Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.

Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.

The analyst said:

“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”

Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.

There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.

This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.

Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing

CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.

Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.

Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.