Morgan Stanley has reiterated its “Overweight” rating and a $220.00 price target on Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA). The investment bank reiterated its rating following the release of Norway’s National Bureau for Statistics’ annual car park data.
Morgan Stanley considers Norway as an important market for analyzing electric vehicle (EV) adoption trends, especially since the country is estimated to be 19 years ahead of the US. For context, Norway reached an impressive 79% EV sales penetration in 2022.
“The National Bureau for Statistics in Norway (Statistics Norway) released their annual car park data last Friday. The numbers speak for themselves: Norway’s electric vehicle to total car park was 21%, and EV sales penetration reached 79% during 2022.
“Although we note that it is difficult to use small countries like Norway as a ‘roadmap’ for what the future of EVs will look like in the US, we believe studying markets where EVs have been successful can offer insights investors can extrapolate,” Morgan Stanley analysts noted.
Morgan Stanley’s EV forecast estimates that Norway is 19 years ahead of the US in EV sales penetration and 13 years ahead in EV fleet penetration. This was despite the fact that Norway’s geography is not really optimized for battery electric cars. Overall, the firm notes that government incentives and low electricity costs that reduce EV ownership expenses are among the key drivers of Norway’s EV expansion.
As per data from the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, US states with lower population densities have been slower to embrace EVs. Considering the EV trends in Norway, however, even consumers in rural areas are fully capable of embracing electric vehicles. This could be an opportunity for vehicles like the Tesla Cybertruck, which is designed to outperform conventional pickup trucks in both performance and utility.
Tesla stock is trading up 2.06% as of writing.
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