Investor's Corner
Tesla makings its way into Ireland with first store and Superchargers
Tesla has revealed that it will open a ‘Service-Plus’ outlet and four additional Supercharging stations in Ireland in 2017. The announcement came from Tesla Motors director of Nordic sales, Peter Bardenfleth-Hansen, who told The Irish Times that the opening of the Irish store outlet “will happen simultaneously with the introduction of Superchargers.”
Tesla, renowned for its premium electric vehicles and founded by technology visionary Elon Musk, is “pretty far into the process” of entering the Irish market, according to Bardenfleth-Hansen. It is likely that the store outlet, which will be operated directly by Tesla, will be in Dublin. Plans are for the Supercharging stations to have partners in Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Belfast locations.
Service-Plus Outlet
Bardenfleth-Hansen said that Tesla centers in Ireland will likely be what is called a Service-Plus Outlet. Here, Tesla will introduce retail shoppers to the Tesla experience with a model car, design elements, and other paraphernalia. In the same facility, Tesla owners can have their cars serviced.
In many countries, Tesla operates stores on popular shopping streets and in upscale shopping centers. Bardenfleth-Hansen acknowledged that Tesla may evolve into these spaces over time.
Supercharger Stations in Dublin
From its first sale in 2012, Tesla was committed to providing a network of Supercharger stations to its customers. It was a way to help people to limit dependence on fossil fuels. In order to get people to use electric cars, however, it was important to offer electric-car drivers a way to charge when they were away from home and taking long distance all-electric journeys. A Model S or a Model X Supercharge will be free to customers in Ireland and abroad for their lifetimes. The upcoming Model 3 will have an optional Supercharger plan.
Tesla currently has 4,543 Supercharger stands at 727 locations worldwide.
“Each stand is about 135kW, and it’s very rare that we come to a site where there is enough power. So usually, it involves quite a bit of digging, because we have a lot of cabling to put into the ground in order to set up a supercharger station,” Bardenfleth-Hansen explained.
Importantly, Tesla Supercharging stations are strategically located for the convenience and safety of their users. “Usually we partner with a site that has the amenities for our customers to be able to use the restrooms and restaurant. Customers will be in that location for anything between 30 minutes and an hour,” Bardenfleth-Hansen continued. “We have an unwritten rule of thumb that it needs to be a place where a mother with children coming in at 10 p.m. at night feels safe.”
Investment Costs for Soon-to-Be Irish Tesla Owners
Tesla cars imported into Ireland qualify for tax relief of up to 5,000 Euros ($5,500 USD). That will be an incentive to Irish consumers who consider the four-door all-electric Model S coupe, which is the best selling luxury car in Western Europe, according to Forbes, surpassing traditional high-status and internal combustion engine-powered favorites like the Mercedes S class, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8, and Porsche Panamera.
Tesla recently launched its flashy Model X crossover SUV in the U.K. The Model X P100D version accelerates from a standing start to 100km/h in 3.1 seconds. Prices for the upcoming mid-priced Model 3, which will rival the BMW 3 Series and the Audi A4, have not been yet confirmed for Europe. The car can be ordered in the U.S. starting at $35,000 (€31,900).
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.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“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.”
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.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
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