Investor's Corner
Tesla registers another strong batch of Model 3 VINs as Musk sees end to production hell
Just a day after registering more than 6,000 new Model 3 Dual Motor AWD vehicle identification numbers, Tesla has filed for another batch of 2,226 VINs for the compact electric car. With this latest filing, Tesla has registered 15,430 Model 3 for July so far, bringing the total number of registrations to 71,827.
#Tesla registered 2,226 new #Model3 VINs. ~60% estimated to be dual motor. Highest VIN is 71827. https://t.co/UNJGKI2Hb5
— Model 3 VINs (@Model3VINs) July 12, 2018
The newest batch of filings comes at a time when Tesla is hard at work attempting to prove that it can sustain the “burst” rate for the Model 3 the company displayed during the final seven days of Q2 2018, when 5,000 of the vehicles were produced in one week. While the electric car maker managed to hit its Model 3 production targets for the second quarter, doubts about the company’s capability to maintain its optimal levels of production caused Tesla’s stock to plummet.
While doubts about the company’s capability to effectively scale the Model 3’s production are understandable, recent signs from Tesla indicate that the present quarter would end with far better figures than that of Q2 2018. In a statement to Bloomberg Businessweek, Elon Musk admitted that while the past year has been very challenging, he remains optimistic about the company’s chances for the coming year.
“The past year has been very difficult, but I feel like the coming year is going to be really quite good. (We) still (have) one foot in hell. Manufacturing hell will be over in a month,” Musk said.
Musk’s latest statement comes amid reports from the Tesla community stating that the automaker’s investor relation team headed by Senior Director of Investor Relations Aaron Chew held a meeting with investors and analysts last Tuesday. According to reports, Chew gave some new updates on the Model 3’s production, stating that GA3 is currently running at 4,000 vehicles per week while GA4, which is set up in a sprung structure on Fremont’s grounds, is producing 1,000 cars weekly.
Chew also reportedly stated that Tesla is expecting GA3 to ramp to 5,000 Model 3 per week while keeping GA4 at 1,000 weekly by the end of July. With this setup, Tesla would be producing 6,000 vehicles per week, but realistically sustaining a 5,000 a week rate for the rest of Q3 2018. From this point, Tesla would be ramping the Model 3’s production at a deliberate pace, targeting 7,000 cars per week for Q4 2018 and 10,000 per week by mid-2019.
Considering Tesla’s targets for the coming years, the company must be able to tick off the Model 3’s manufacturing from its to-do list. Tesla, after all, has a long list of projects ahead, including the recently-announced Gigafactory 3 in China, the Model Y, the Tesla Semi, the next-gen Roadster, Gigafactory 4 in Europe, and the Tesla Truck. If Tesla is to finish all these projects, it would have to start earning revenue from the Model 3; and for this to happen, the production of the vehicle must be fully optimized.
With Elon Musk’s estimates that production hell is ending in a month, however, together with Andrew Chew’s statement to investors regarding the Model 3’s sustained production rate for Q3 2018, Tesla could very well end the year with enough momentum to start 2019 on a strong note.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
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.
Tesla Model Y gets fresh configuration with three highly requested features
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
