Investor's Corner
Tesla stock (TSLA) rallies again amid successful Model 3 store debut and more Semi truck orders
Early last week, Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) surprised the street, beating expectations and rallying up 6 percent during the day’s trading. While the reasons behind the surge remained unknown, speculations among Tesla’s enthusiasts were high that the consistently positive reviews on its latest and possibly most disruptive vehicle, the Model 3, helped in improving the sentiments of investors. This week, it seems like something similar is set to happen again, with the California-based electric carmaker’s stock up over 2 percent in early morning trading.
While shares of Tesla closed down at $336.22 last Friday, over the past weekend and into Martin Luther King Jr. Day, investors headed into Tuesday trading with positive sentiments and expectations. By 10:20 EST, TSLA shares were breaching the $343.00 barrier or up 2.02 percent from Friday’s close.
Just like the past week’s 6 percent rally, this week’s surge in shares of TSLA seems to be partly driven by the ongoing momentum the California-based electric car maker is enjoying with regards to the Model 3 and developments taking place in its energy division. Over the past weekend alone, interest in the company’s first mass-market electric compact sedan was at an all-time high after Tesla finally displayed the Model 3 to the public at its stores in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay area. Reminiscent of the day of Model 3 Mania, interested buyers quite literally lined up outside Tesla’s stores to get a chance to experience the game-changing electric car.
Apart from this, the company’s commercial truck, the Tesla Semi, is also enjoying a lot of interest not only from companies in the United States but also from other countries abroad. Over the past week, reports emerged that Norway’s Postal Norge had filed an order for the electric long-hauler. Even more recently, UAE-based environmental and waste management firm Bee’ah revealed that it had ordered 50 Tesla Semis immediately after the quad-electric motor truck was unveiled last year. The Middle Eastern conglomerate further announced that it had signed an agreement with Tesla to install the company’s Powerpack system at the company’s upcoming headquarters.
Performance of Tesla shares (green) compared to US rivals GM and Ford [Source: Yahoo Finance]
Overall, the start of this week seems to be favorable for the auto industry. Even Detroit’s biggest players such as Ford (NASDAQ: F) and GM (NASDAQ: GM) saw a surge in their stock prices. Ford, for one, saw a 0.55 percent rise in its stock, trading at $13.31 per share and attaining a market cap of $52.884 billion. GM, on the other hand, did just as well, trading at $45.10 and attaining a market cap of $64.082 billion.
Just like how Tesla’s stocks might be affected by the positive reception of the Model 3, the spike in the shares of Ford and GM might partly be the result of the company’s renewed commitment to an electric future. Just recently, Ford announced that it is investing $11 billion into its electric car development program, with the legacy automaker aiming to release multiple green vehicles within the next couple of years. GM’s Chevy Bolt EV seems to be doing its part as well, encouraging the auto firm to accelerate its eventual transition to the development and release of electric vehicles.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
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