Investor's Corner
Classic Tesla bear thesis gets revived with Goldman Sachs’ latest Sell rating
Just a little over a week after Elon Musk walked away from Tesla’s privatization deal, Goldman Sachs has resumed its coverage of the company. With this renewed coverage comes a strong Sell rating, citing increasing competition from rival carmakers as a reason behind a possible decline in Tesla’s share in the EV market.
A recent note penned by Goldman Sachs analyst David Tamberrino stated that the financial firm believes Tesla stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) would drop 30% in the next 6 months due to the arrival of competing electric vehicles over the next few years. Amidst the release of Goldman Sachs’ note, Tesla shares have taken a 3% drop during Tuesday’s intraday.
“We see the medium-to-longer term industry backdrop as challenging for Tesla’s products; this follows from an increasing number of EV launches from both traditional OEMs and other start-up competitors — at a time when the company’s product cadence hits a gap. We believe the company will see pressure to its lead in EVs as competition catches up,” Tamberrino wrote.
The Goldman Sachs analyst provided a list of some of the electric car makers he believes would be a legitimate threat to Tesla, among them vehicles from BMW, Jaguar, and Porsche, as well as other legacy carmakers that have pledged to release electric cars over the next few years.
“With regional mandates and tightening CO2 standards, both traditional and new entrants are expected to launch several EVs in the coming years — with a large crescendo in the early-to-mid 2020s. Altogether, we remain bearish on the company’s ability to execute, achieve its targeted production ramp/margins, and sustain FCF [free cash flow] generation,” Tamberrino wrote.
It should be noted that the Goldman Sachs analyst has maintained a firm Sell rating on Tesla for a while now. David Tamberrino, for one, has kept his Sell rating on the company since last year, partly causing his rankings in websites such as the TipRanks to suffer. So far, Tamberrino has an average return of -9.0, ranking him as #4,553 out of 4,875 among TipRanks‘ list of Wall St. analysts.
The idea of rival car companies coming up with “Tesla Killers” has been around for a very long time, and over the years, these vehicles have taken many forms. Last year, it was the Chevy Bolt EV being hailed as the Model 3 killer. This year, it’s the Jaguar I-PACE. Next year, it will probably be the Porsche Taycan.
While it is true that these vehicles are legitimate competition for Tesla’s electric cars in terms of quality and performance, their usually limited production numbers prevent them from actually having a shot at toppling the Model S, X, and 3 from their spots at the top of the premium EV market. Chevy, for one, has not really pushed the production of the Bolt this year, Jaguar is reportedly planning to produce up to 30,000 units of the I-PACE annually, and Porsche has revealed that the initial production of the Taycan would be at 20,000 cars per year. Tesla, even at its present state where it is still refining its Model 3 production, is looking to produce around 50,000-55,000 Model 3 this Q3 2018. That’s practically the planned annual production of the Taycan and the I-PACE combined.
Besides, the idea of electric cars “killing” an electric car maker is flawed at its core. Tesla’s electric vehicles, after all, are a step towards sustainability. Thus, if other manufacturers are designing their electric cars in the same way that Tesla is, then they should not be releasing vehicles that are designed to “kill” other electric cars — they should be creating vehicles that are designed to “kill” gas and diesel-powered automobiles.
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading down 3.25% at $291.70 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
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.
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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.”
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.
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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