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 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.”
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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.
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“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.”
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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.
Investor's Corner
Tesla Q4 delivery numbers are better than they initially look: analyst
The Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner shared his thoughts in a post on his website.
Longtime Tesla analyst and Deepwater Asset Management Managing Partner Gene Munster has shared his insights on Tesla’s Q4 2025 deliveries. As per the analyst, Tesla’s numbers are actually better than they first appear.
Munster shared his thoughts in a post on his website.
Normalized December Deliveries
Munster noted that Tesla delivered 418k vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2025, slightly below Street expectations of 420k but above the whisper number of 415k. Tesla’s reported 16% year-over-year decline, compared to +7% in September, is largely distorted by the timing of the tax credit expiration, which pulled forward demand.
“Taking a step back, we believe September deliveries pulled forward approximately 55k units that would have otherwise occurred in December or March. For simplicity, we assume the entire pull-forward impacted the December quarter. Under this assumption, September growth would have been down ~5% absent the 55k pull-forward, a Deepwater estimate tied to the credit’s expiration.
“For December deliveries to have declined ~5% year over year would imply total deliveries of roughly 470k. Subtracting the 55k units pulled into September results in an implied December delivery figure of approximately 415k. The reported 418k suggests that, when normalizing for the tax credit timing, quarter-over-quarter growth has been consistently down ~5%. Importantly, this ~5% decline represents an improvement from the ~13% declines seen in both the March and June 2025 quarters.“
Tesla’s United States market share
Munster also estimated that Q4 as a whole might very well show a notable improvement in Tesla’s market share in the United States.
“Over the past couple of years, based on data from Cox Automotive, Tesla has been losing U.S. EV market share, declining to just under 50%. Based on data for October and November, Cox estimates that total U.S. EV sales were down approximately 35%, compared to Tesla’s just reported down 16% for the full quarter. For the first two months of the quarter, Cox reported Tesla market share of roughly a 65% share, up from under 50% in the September quarter.
“While this data excludes December, the quarter as a whole is likely to show a material improvement in Tesla’s U.S. EV market share.“
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