Investor's Corner
Tesla stock reels in $900 following Elon Musk’s big space achievement, analyst upgrades
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) moves closer to the $900 mark after a big weekend for CEO Elon Musk. Musk qualified for the first tranche of his multibillion-dollar performance bonus, and SpaceX successfully launched two astronauts into space this past weekend. The electric automaker also received several upgrades from analysts based on Tesla’s future outlook in international markets.
Jairam Nathan of Daiwa Securities launched coverage of the automaker with a Buy rating and a $910 price target. He believes the electric automaker is a few short steps away from global dominance.
In a note to investors, Nathan wrote that Tesla is close to succeeding in international markets like China and Europe. Nathan believes that the company can have similar success in Europe and China, especially considering the Gigafactory production facilities that are being built in the two locations.
Simply put, Tesla is “on the cusp of replicating its success in the U.S. EV market to potentially larger markets in China and Europe,” the Daiwa analyst wrote, according to Barron’s.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives also increased his price target from $600 to $800. Ives stated, “we continue to believe EV demand in China is starting to accelerate with Tesla competing with a number of domestic and international competitors for this market share.”
At the time of writing, Tesla stock traded at $873.95, up 4.66%, or $38.95.
The surge in price could be attributed to projections that the electric vehicle sector will skyrocket in 2021 based on a new report by Cairn Energy Research Advisors, CNBC reported. Sam Jaffe of Cairn stated, “There’s pent-up demand for electric vehicles. We will see a combination of factors make 2021 an inflection point for the sale of electric vehicles.”
Musk’s success over the weekend with the newly-earned bonus and successful SpaceX launch may have attributed to the stock price increase as well. SpaceX became the first privatized company to successfully launch NASA astronauts into orbit.
Currently, Tesla’s two international production facilities are located in Shanghai, China, and Brandenburg, Germany. Shanghai is now producing around 4,000 Model 3 vehicles a week, while Berlin is still under construction and is set to begin manufacturing in July 2021.
Giga Shanghai has been producing variants of the Model 3 since December 2019, but Tesla did not begin delivering built cars to public customers until January 2020. The first cars built in the facility were initially given to employees and not Chinese citizens.
Since the first Model 3s were delivered to China’s first buyers of what has come to be known as the “Made in China” versions of the sedan, Tesla has continued to ramp its production rates and introduce new configurations of the vehicle. Currently, construction crews are also working on the second phase of the Chinese vehicle manufacturing plant, where Tesla’s latest car, the Model Y crossover, will be built.
The steady demand for Tesla’s electric cars has allowed the company to be recognized as one of China’s most popular EV brands. In April 2020, the Model 3 was the second most popular electric car in China, trailing the Qin Pro EV from Xi’an-based BYD Automotive. This information is according to the EV Sales Blog, a website that tracks the sale of electric cars around the world.
In Germany, Tesla is continuing to push toward the groundbreaking of its Gigafactory in Brandenburg, a state encircled by Berlin. Giga Berlin will supply the European markets with Tesla’s electric vehicles. The construction of this Gigafactory has encountered barriers from COVID-19 and residents’ concerns, but Tesla has managed to remain on schedule thanks to support from German politicians.
The Giga Berlin facility will employ 12,000 people, providing a positive impact on Germany’s economy.
Nathan’s outlook of dominance in Europe and China is backed by Tesla’s willingness to become a foreign automaker and establish a presence in countries other than the United States. With substantial support from the massive Chinese automotive market and European countries, there is plenty of speculation that Tesla will thrive even more when the company establishes production facilities in foreign lands.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Elon Musk
Tesla locks in Elon Musk’s top problem solver as it enters its most ambitious era
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla has granted Senior Vice President of Automotive Tom Zhu more than 520,000 stock options, tying a significant portion of his compensation to the company’s long-term performance.
The generous equity award was disclosed by the electric vehicle maker in a recent regulatory filing.
Tesla secures top talent
According to a Form 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Tom Zhu received 520,021 stock options with an exercise price of $435.80 per share. Since the award will not fully vest until March 5, 2031, Zhu must remain at Tesla for more than five years to realize the award’s full benefit.
Considering that Tesla shares are currently trading at around the $445 to $450 per share level, Zhu will really only see gains in his equity award if Tesla’s stock price sees a notable rise over the years, as noted in a Sina Finance report.
Still, even at today’s prices, Zhu’s stock award is already worth over $230 million. If Tesla reaches the market cap targets set forth in Elon Musk’s 2025 CEO Performance Award, Zhu would become a billionaire from this equity award alone.
Tesla’s problem solver
Zhu joined Tesla in April 2014 and initially led the company’s Supercharger rollout in China. Later that year, he assumed the leadership of Tesla’s China business, where he played a central role in Tesla’s localization efforts, including expanding retail and service networks, and later, overseeing the development of Gigafactory Shanghai.
Zhu’s efforts helped transform China into one of Tesla’s most important markets and production hubs. In 2023, Tesla promoted Zhu to Senior Vice President of Automotive, placing him among the company’s core global executives and expanding his influence beyond China. He has since garnered a reputation as the company’s problem solver, being tapped by Elon Musk to help ramp Giga Texas’s vehicle production.
With this in mind, Tesla’s recent filing seems to suggest that the company is locking in its top talent as it enters its newest, most ambitious era to date. As could be seen in the targets of Elon Musk’s 2025 pay package, Tesla is now aiming to be the world’s largest company by market cap, and it is aiming to achieve production levels that are unheard of. Zhu’s talents would definitely be of use in this stage of the company’s growth.
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.
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