Investor's Corner
Tesla Model 3 VIN registrations rocket past 100k mark as production approaches 6k/week
After spending more than a year deep in “manufacturing hell,” Tesla passed a milestone in its Model 3 production. The company registered two large batches of Model 3 VINs this weekend, effectively passing the 100,000-mark for the electric sedan’s filings.
Tesla’s 100,000 Model 3 VIN milestone comes roughly a week after the company registered a record 16,000 new VINs in a seven-day period. With the addition of the 2,207 registered this Saturday and 6,836 VINs registered on Sunday, Tesla has now filed a total of 108,188 Model 3 VINs since starting the production of the electric car last July.
#Tesla registered 2,207 new #Model3 VINs. ~100% estimated to be dual motor. Highest VIN is 101352. https://t.co/IKvPZI3hqC
— Model 3 VINs (@Model3VINs) August 18, 2018
#Tesla registered 6,836 new #Model3 VINs. ~73% estimated to be dual motor. Highest VIN is 108188. https://t.co/Wq0Y0kJLkL
— Model 3 VINs (@Model3VINs) August 19, 2018
The Model 3 ramp was an ambitious goal for Tesla, and it came at a great cost for the company and its CEO. In an interview last month, Elon Musk dubbed the Model 3 ramp was a “bet-the-company” situation, where the vehicle’s failure would have resulted in the fall of Tesla. The production ramp of the Model 3 has been anything but smooth as well, with Tesla facing bottleneck after bottleneck as it attempted to hit the hyper-aggressive manufacturing goals set forth by Elon Musk.
During the midsize electric car’s handover ceremony, Musk stated that Tesla would be aiming to hit a production rate of 5,000 Model 3 per week by the end of December 2017. This goal was eventually met, though it happened six months late. All this has exhausted Elon Musk, who noted in a recent interview with the New York Times that the past 12 months had been the most “difficult and painful” year of his career.
Even when Tesla hit its then-elusive goal of manufacturing 5,000 Model 3 in one week, reservations were abounding about the company’s capability to sustain its optimum production rate for the electric sedan. Despite these reservations, signs emerged in July that Tesla might be capable of maintaining its 5,000/week Model 3 ramp. Tesla started test drives for the Model 3 and introduced programs designed to deliver as many vehicles as possible, such as the 5-Minute Sign & Drive system. VIN registrations for the Model 3 picked up as well, with Tesla registering 19,000 new Model 3 VINs during the first half of the month.
Tesla’s capability to sustain its 5,000/week Model 3 production rate was highlighted by the company during its Q2 2018 earnings call, when Elon Musk mentioned that the Model 3 line sustained its 5000/week rate during “multiple weeks” in July. Since then, Tesla’s Model 3 ramp has exhibited even more encouraging signs. Bloomberg‘s production tracker, which has gotten more accurate over the past months (it was only ~2% off its Q2 estimates), now shows that Tesla is pacing to hit a production rate of 6,000 Model 3 weekly. As of writing, the publication’s tracker estimates that Tesla is producing 5,942 Model 3 per week.
The Model 3 production ramp is starting to win over Wall Street. Last week, even noted Tesla bear Toni Sacconaghi from Sanford C. Bernstein, who previously had a $265 price target for Tesla, raised his price target to $325 per share. Jefferies Financial Group, which also had a conservative $250 price target for the company, also raised its price target to $360 per share.
Perhaps the most notable vote of confidence for the Model 3 production ramp came from George Galliers of Evercore ISI, who was given an extensive tour of the Fremont factory, including the sprung structure-based GA4 set up on the facility’s grounds. According to Galliers, Tesla appears to be “well on the way” to hitting a sustained weekly production rate of 5,000-6,000 Model 3 per week. The Evercore ISI analyst also noted that Tesla’s current facilities appear to be fully capable of hitting 8,000 Model 3 per week in the future.
“Tesla seems well on the way to achieving a steady weekly production rate of 5,000 to 6,000 units per week. We are incrementally positive on Tesla following our visit. We have confidence in their production. We did not see anything to suggest that Model 3 cannot reach 6k units per week and 7k to 8k with very little incremental capital expenditure. Focusing on the fundamentals and setting aside talk of privatization, we are incrementally positive on Tesla following our visit,” the Evercore ISI analyst noted.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm on self-driving prowess
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet,” BoA wrote.
Tesla received a tip of the hat from major Wall Street firm Bank of America on Wednesday, as it reinitiated coverage on Tesla shares with a bullish stance that comes with a ‘Buy’ rating and a $460 price target.
In a new note that marks a sharp reversal from its neutral position earlier in 2025, the bank declared Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology the “leading consumer autonomy solution.”
Analysts highlighted Tesla’s camera-only architecture, known as Tesla Vision, as a strategic masterstroke. While technically more challenging than the multi-sensor setups favored by rivals, the vision-based approach is dramatically cheaper to produce and maintain.
This cost edge, combined with Tesla’s rapidly expanding real-world data engine, positions the company to scale robotaxis far more profitably than competitors, BofA argues in the new note:
“Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving, supported by a camera-only approach that is technically harder but much cheaper than the multi-sensor systems widely used in the industry. This strategy should allow Tesla to scale more profitably compared to Robotaxi competitors, helped by a growing data engine from its existing fleet.”
The bank now attributes roughly 52% of Tesla’s total valuation to its Robotaxi ambitions. It also flagged meaningful upside from the Optimus humanoid robot program and the fast-growing energy storage business, suggesting the auto segment’s recent headwinds, including expired incentives, are being eclipsed by these higher-margin opportunities.
Tesla’s own data underscores exactly why Wall Street is waking up to FSD’s potential. According to Tesla’s official safety reporting page, the FSD Supervised fleet has now surpassed 8.4 billion cumulative miles driven.
Tesla FSD (Supervised) fleet passes 8.4 billion cumulative miles
That total ballooned from just 6 million miles in 2021 to 80 million in 2022, 670 million in 2023, 2.25 billion in 2024, and a staggering 4.25 billion in 2025 alone. In the first 50 days of 2026, owners added another 1 billion miles — averaging more than 20 million miles per day.
This avalanche of real-world, camera-captured footage, much of it on complex city streets, gives Tesla an unmatched training dataset. Every mile feeds its neural networks, accelerating improvement cycles that lidar-dependent rivals simply cannot match at scale.
Tesla owners themselves will tell you the suite gets better with every release, bringing new features and improvements to its self-driving project.
The $460 target implies roughly 15 percent upside from recent trading levels around $400. While regulatory and safety hurdles remain, BofA’s endorsement signals growing institutional conviction that Tesla’s data advantage is not hype; it’s a tangible moat already delivering billions of miles of proof.
Elon Musk
SpaceX IPO could push Elon Musk’s net worth past $1 trillion: Polymarket
The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.
Recent projections have outlined how a potential $1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO could generate historic returns for early investors. The projections suggest the offering would not only become the largest IPO in history but could also result in unprecedented windfalls for some of the company’s key investors.
The estimates were shared by the official Polymarket Money account on social media platform X.
As noted in a Polymarket Money analysis, Elon Musk invested $100 million into SpaceX in 2002 and currently owns approximately 42% of the company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation following SpaceX’s potential $1.75 trillion IPO, that stake would be worth roughly $735 billion.
Such a figure would dramatically expand Musk’s net worth. When combined with his holdings in Tesla Inc. and other ventures, a public debut at that level could position him as the world’s first trillionaire, depending on market conditions at the time of listing.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently lists Elon Musk with a net worth of $666 billion, though a notable portion of this is tied to his TSLA stock. Tesla currently holds a market cap of $1.51 trillion, and Elon Musk’s currently holds about 13% to 15% of the company’s outstanding common stock.
Founders Fund, co-founded by Peter Thiel, invested $20 million in SpaceX in 2008. Polymarket Money estimates the firm owns between 1.5% and 3% of the private space company. At a $1.75 trillion valuation, that range would translate to approximately $26.25 billion to $52.5 billion in value.
That return would represent one of the most significant venture capital outcomes in modern Silicon Valley history, with a growth of 131,150% to 262,400%.
Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, invested $900 million into SpaceX in 2015 and is estimated to hold between 6% and 7% of the private space firm. At the projected IPO valuation, that stake could be worth between $105 billion and $122.5 billion. That’s a growth of 11,566% to 14,455%.
Other major backers highlighted in the post include Fidelity Investments, Baillie Gifford, Valor Equity Partners, Bank of America, and Andreessen Horowitz, each potentially sitting on multibillion-dollar gains.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk hints Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily
“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet,” Musk said.
Elon Musk recently hinted that he believes Tesla investors will be rewarded heavily if they continue to hold onto their shares, and he reiterated that in a new interview that the company released on its social accounts this week.
Musk is one of the most successful CEOs in the modern era and has mammothed competitors on the Forbes Net Worth List over the past year as his holdings in his various companies have continued to swell.
Tesla investors, especially those who have been holding shares for several years, have also felt substantial gains in their portfolios. Over the past five years, the stock is up over 78 percent. Since February 2019, nearly seven years ago to the day, the stock is up over 1,800 percent.
Musk said in the interview:
“Hold onto your Tesla stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.”
Elon Musk in new interview: “Hold on to your $TSLA stock. It’s going to be worth a lot, I think. That’s my bet.” pic.twitter.com/cucirBuhq0
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) February 26, 2026
It’s no secret Musk has been extremely bullish on his own companies, but Tesla in particular, because it is publicly traded.
However, the company has so many amazing projects that have an opportunity to revolutionize their respective industries. There is certainly a path to major growth on Wall Street for Tesla through its various future projects, including Optimus, Cybercab, Semi, and Unsupervised FSD.
- Optimus (Tesla’s humanoid robot): Musk has discussed its potential for tasks like childcare, walking dogs, or assisting elderly parents, positioning it as a massive long-term driver of company value.
- Cybercab (Tesla’s robotaxi/autonomous ride-hailing vehicle): a fully autonomous vehicle geared specifically for Tesla’s ride-sharing ambitions.
- Semi (Tesla’s electric truck, with mentions of expansion, like in Europe): brings Tesla into the commercial logistics sector.
- Unsupervised FSD (Full Self-Driving software achieving full autonomy without human supervision): turns every Tesla owner’s vehicle into a fully-autonomous vehicle upon release
These projects specifically are some of the highest-growth pillars Tesla has ever attempted to develop, especially in Musk’s eyes, as he has said Optimus will be the best-selling product of all-time.
Many analysts agree, but the bullish ones, like Cathie Wood of ARK Invest, are perhaps the one who believes Tesla has incredible potential on Wall Street, predicting a $2,600 price target for 2030, but this is not even including Optimus.
She told Bloomberg last March that she believes that the project will present a potential additive if Tesla can scale faster than anticipated.
Tesla wins another award critics will absolutely despise
Tesla Full Self-Driving likely to expand to yet another Asian country
