Investor's Corner
Tesla shares jump amid $500 price target and Model 3 dual motor update
Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) is showing signs of recovery on Monday’s intraday, rising 5.23% and trading at $291.10 per share prior to the day’s opening bell. Tesla’s upswing came amidst a new vote of confidence from investment bank Berenberg, which raised its price target to $500 per share, signifying an 80% upside to Friday’s close.
Apart from raising its price target for TSLA stock from $470 to $500, Berenberg also predicted that the electric car maker and energy company would be able to achieve its 25% gross profit margin forecast for the Model 3. The investment bank reiterated its Buy rating for TSLA stock as well.
According to Berenberg analyst Alexander Haissl in a note on Friday, the assumption that Tesla Model S and Model X profit margins could be a basis for the Model 3 is flawed. Haissl noted that gains from lower labor content and capital and material use efficiencies would enable Tesla to hit its 25% goal.
“Model 3 gross margin to positively surprise. The widespread assumption that Model 3 margins can be directly inferred from Model S/X is inherently and almost totally flawed. Substantial gains from lower labor content, as well as capital and material use efficiencies, should allow Tesla to comfortably achieve a margin above 25% throughout the product cycle,” the analyst wrote.
Haissl also cited the Model 3’s more straightforward design and lower material costs as a means for Tesla to achieve profitability on the vehicle. The Berenberg analyst estimates that the labor cost for the Model 3 is likely around $1,000 per vehicle, compared to the $4,000 estimated labor costs for the Model S. This, according to Haissl, is due to Tesla’s “higher levels of automation and lower in-sourced content” in the Model 3 production line.
Most importantly, the Berenberg analyst downplayed fears and speculations that Tesla would be moving away from a more modernized production system.
“We think reports that Tesla is reversing its automated manufacturing strategy over-exaggerated the real changes to the production system. We expect Tesla to remain the battery technology leader, as traditional OEMs have shown little effort to commit meaningful capital into battery technology,” Haissl wrote.
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Apart from Berenberg’s positive outlook, investor sentiment appears to have received a boost from Elon Musk’s announcement of the next two variants of the Model 3. Over the weekend, Musk revealed the specs and pricing of the compact electric car’s two new versions.
According to Musk, the Model 3 dual-motor AWD, which costs $54,000 without Autopilot, will be able to go from 0-60 mph in 4.5 seconds and have a top speed of 140 mph. The Model 3 Performance, on the other hand, will command a higher price of $78,000 without Autopilot. True to its name, the Model 3 Performance will have a top speed of 155 mph and be capable of sprinting to 60 mph in just 3.5 seconds.
In later tweets during the weekend, Musk also explained the rather long wait for reservation holders who are holding out for the Model 3’s $35,000, standard-range version.
With production, 1st you need achieve target rate & then smooth out flow to achieve target cost. Shipping min cost Model 3 right away wd cause Tesla to lose money & die. Need 3 to 6 months after 5k/wk to ship $35k Tesla & live.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2018
As of writing, TSLA stock is trading up 5.23% at $291.10 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
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Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
SpaceX just picked up another $1.6 billion from the Pentagon, with the U.S. Space Force awarding two task orders worth $1.6 billion to fly 18 Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California through the end of 2027. The launches will carry satellites for the Space Based Sensing and Targeting portfolio, a set of programs meant to help the military detect and track airborne threats and relay that information across forces in near real time.
The award falls under National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1, the Space Force’s faster, commercial style procurement track for missions that do not require the military’s most demanding certification process. It is also the largest single order publicly disclosed under that program so far, and the first task order issued since the Space Force nearly tripled Lane 1’s contract ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion on July 17.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
Eric Zarybnisky, the Space Force’s acting portfolio acquisition executive for space access, said the entire process, from identifying the requirement to signing the contract, took about two months, including a month set aside for companies to prepare proposals.
SpaceX is not just launching these satellites. It already holds the contracts to build two of the programs within the same portfolio, $4.16 billion for the Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator system and $2.29 billion for the Space Data Network Backbone, which Teslarati covered in May. That means SpaceX is now responsible for both building key pieces of the military’s next generation sensing network and getting them into orbit.
With this latest award, SpaceX’s Pentagon contract total for 2026 alone tops $8 billion, adding to a defense portfolio that already includes the Golden Dome missile defense software group SpaceX joined in April and a string of GPS launches it inherited after ULA’s Vulcan rocket ran into a booster anomaly, which we detailed in March.
Lane 1’s vendor pool technically includes seven companies: SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Impulse Space, and Relativity Space. In practice, SpaceX remains the only provider with the combination of launch cadence, flight proven Falcon 9 hardware, and West Coast infrastructure to support a campaign requiring roughly one Vandenberg launch a month for the next year and a half.
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Some lawmakers have flagged the growing concentration of national security launches with one company as a risk worth watching. For now, the Space Force keeps backing SpaceX, with it being the company that shows up ready to launch.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) got an absolutely crazy price target rating from Raymond James after the company experienced a tough first few weeks following its Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Despite the tumultuous start, SpaceX has plenty of believers, and the company’s massively successful Starship launch last Friday, its 13th test flight of the massive rocket, went so smoothly that Raymond James analysts pushed its price target on the company to roughly 7 times its current trading level.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
The firm officially put a “Strong Buy” rating and an $800 price target on the stock. It currently trades at around $113. Its all-time high is $225.64, reaching this trading level shortly after shares first went public.
Raymond James’ price target is tied to the firm’s confidence after Starship’s 13th test flight. Analysts at the firm said it was an incremental step that reduces engineering risks, citing the widely successful heat shield test that CEO Elon Musk recently detailed, the smooth deployment of Starlink V3 satellites, and a successful in-space engine relight.
SpaceX also managed to see Starship splash down safely in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy Booster fell down to the Gulf of America with no incidents.
It is interesting to see these launches have such a tremendous impact on the stock and what investors think of it. After SpaceX initially delayed the Starship launch last week, shares fell tremendously. Most probably did not realize that the stand-down is a standard practice, especially if everything is not perfect.
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The mission was initially aborted due to an issue with Raptor engines. This was resolved, and Starship launched last Friday after another delay on Thursday, which was caused by weather.
Now that analysts have seen what SpaceX launches are capable of and how impressive the feat is, firms are adjusting their price targets accordingly, making it known that they have high expectations for the space exploration company.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
