Investor's Corner
Tesla stock (TSLA) holding steady amid signs of Model 3 sustained ramp, vote of confidence from Detroit
Tesla shares (NASDAQ:TSLA) are holding steady following Monday’s steep dive after investors weighed in on the now-deleted wild remarks made by CEO Elon Musk over Twitter. As signs emerge that Model 3 production ramp will remain consistent, bolstered by positive sentiment from Detroit after veteran Sandy Munro concluded that Tesla could exceed a 30% profit margin on its mass-market electric car, investors see these as indicators for potentially more upbeat sentiments to come.
Tesla stock has been a battleground since the company announced that it has hit its target of producing 5,000 Model 3 per week at the end of the second quarter. Amidst reservations from a number of Wall St. analysts who believe that the Model 3’s optimal production pace is unsustainable, the company’s shares took a dive. Tesla stock briefly got a reprieve on July 10, after the company announced its plans of building its third Gigafactory in China. Since then, however, the electric car maker’s stock continued to be volatile, until its notable plunge on Monday, when shares fell over 3.5% amidst controversy resulting from Elon Musk’s controversial and now-deleted statements on Twitter during the weekend. In Monday’s after-hours trading, Tesla shares were at $307.20, a significant drop from Friday’s close of $318.87.
As markets opened on Tuesday, however, Tesla stock began holding, as the backlash from Musk’s incendiary weekend Twitter session appeared to taper off. Behind this weekend’s report of Musk’s donations to the GOP and his Twitter issues, after all, signs are emerging that Tesla’s problems with the Model 3 are ending.
This weekend alone, Tesla started shipping ~100 Model 3 Performance to its showrooms to be utilized as test drive units. This follows the electric car’s successful appearance at the 2018 Goodwood Festival of Speed in England, where it attracted a significant amount of interest from the event’s attendees. Tesla’s VIN registrations have also seen a notable spike since the end of the second quarter, with the company registering more than 19,000 new Model 3 VINs since the beginning of the month. It should be noted that Tesla started manufacturing the Model 3 in mid-2017, and it was only able to hit the 19,000 mark this March.
Apart from signs that the Model 3’s 5,000/week production could actually be sustained, more encouraging news for Tesla came in the form of a new Autoline Network segment featuring Detroit veteran Sandy Munro. Munro, a teardown expert and CEO of Munro & Associates, has been studying the Model 3 for months, and while his initial impressions on the vehicle were predominantly negative, he was eventually won over by Tesla’s battery technology and electronics. According to Munro, Tesla could see more than 30% profit on the Model 3, thanks to the California-based electric car company’s in-house development and optimal utilization of the vehicle’s components.
Munro noted that the Tesla Model 3’s electronics, which he previously compared to a military-grade flight controller, is a “symphony of engineering.” The Detroit veteran also praised Tesla’s 2170 cells for the Model 3, which are 20% larger than the Model S and X’s 18650 cells but carry 50% more power. Perhaps the most notable among Munro’s conclusion, however, was mentioned by Autoline Network in its video’s comments section. According to the network, Munro stated that he expects even the $35,000 Standard Range RWD Model 3 to still make a “double-digit gross profit.”
Munro’s findings are in line with the results outlined by a German teardown company earlier this year, which estimated that the materials used for the Model 3 cost around $18,000 per vehicle. Coupled with Tesla’s pledge to reduce its cobalt use (cobalt is among the most expensive components of its batteries) over the next few years, Tesla’s profit margins for the Model 3 appear to have a lot of potential.
As the dust clears, it seems like Elon Musk’s recent statement in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek will come to pass — Tesla’s production hell with the Model 3 is ending, and the coming year would be very, very encouraging.
As of writing, Tesla shares are trading up 1.34% at $314.12 per share.
Disclosure: I have no ownership in shares of TSLA and have no plans to initiate any positions within 72 hours.
Investor's Corner
Tesla just did something in South Korea that no foreign carmaker has ever done
Tesla’s Model Y just became South Korea’s best-selling car, beating every domestic model in May.
Tesla did something last month that no foreign car has ever done in South Korea by outselling every vehicle in the country, domestic or imported, finishing the month with Model Y as the single best-selling car across the entire Korean market. According to data from the Korea Automobile Importers and Distributors Association released on June 4, the Model Y recorded 8,762 units sold in May, pushing the Kia Sorento into second place at 7,836 units and the Hyundai Grandeur into third at 5,183 units. It is the first time an imported vehicle has outsold every domestic model on a single-month basis.
Tesla imported 10,866 cars into South Korea in May, making it the top import brand for the fourth consecutive month. BMW followed at 6,555 units, less than two-thirds of Tesla’s total, while BYD registered just 1,032 units. The combined domestic sales of GM Korea, Renault Korea, and KG Mobility last month totaled just 7,019 units, meaning a single Tesla model outsold three Korean automakers combined.
Tesla FSD earns high praise in South Korea’s real-world autonomous driving test
South Korea has historically been one of the hardest markets for foreign automakers to crack. Hyundai and Kia together control close to 70% of the overall market and carry deep consumer loyalty built over decades. Tesla’s path into this market was an uphill battle due to high import duties, limited service infrastructure, and early skepticism about charging networks. In 2024, the Model Y was the best-selling imported car in South Korea with 18,717 units for the full year. By 2025, after the Juniper refresh, it cleared 50,000 units and took the top spot among all EVs.
Year to date, Tesla has a 250.8% increase in the country over the same period last year, and now holds a 30.8% share of the entire imported car segment for 2026. EVs as a category represented 48.6% of all imported passenger car registrations in May. As Teslarati has reported, the Juniper refresh brought meaningful improvements to range, interior quality, and ride refinement that addressed the most common criticisms of earlier Model Y versions. Those upgrades appear to be resonating in markets like South Korea where buyers compare Tesla directly against high end domestic competitors.
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) stands to reap one of the most extraordinary returns in pension fund history thanks to a bold 2019 investment in SpaceX.
According to a recent report from The Globe and Mail, the Toronto-based fund invested roughly $300 million CAD (~$220 million USD at the time) in Elon Musk’s space company as its inaugural deal through the Teachers’ Innovation Platform.
At SpaceX’s anticipated $1.75 trillion IPO valuation, set for a mid-June debut on Nasdaq under ticker $SPCX, that stake could now be worth up to $11.6 billion USD. This would represent a roughly 50x return and easily become OTPP’s most successful single investment ever.
The fund manages $279 billion in assets for approximately 346,000 working and retired teachers in Ontario, potentially delivering an average boost of around $33,500 per member if fully realized.
SpaceX has filed its S-1 and plans to price shares at $135 each, aiming to raise a record $75 billion in what would be the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco. The company reported $18.67 billion in revenue for 2025, driven primarily by Starlink satellite internet growth and NASA contracts, though it continues to post significant losses tied to ambitious R&D in Starship and AI initiatives.
Important pieces moving forward include:
- Starlink Expansion: The satellite broadband service is scaling rapidly, targeting global connectivity, especially in underserved rural and remote areas. This segment offers massive recurring revenue potential as numbers climb.
- Starship and Reusability Leadership: SpaceX’s fully reusable Starship aims to slash launch costs dramatically, enabling frequent missions, Mars ambitions, and lucrative government/defense contracts. Success here could unlock exponential growth.
- AI and Diversification: Recent moves, including ties to xAI, position SpaceX in high-growth AI infrastructure, broadening beyond traditional aerospace.
- Validation Scrutiny: While the $1.75 trillion target excites investors, analysts like Morningstar value the company closer to $780 billion, citing high multiples (around 90x trailing revenue) and execution risks. A 180-day lockup period will prevent early investors like OTPP from selling immediately post-IPO.
The irony has not been lost on observers. Ontario’s government previously canceled a Starlink rural internet contract amid political tensions involving Musk, yet the pension fund’s savvy investment, made when SpaceX was valued around $33-36 billion, and Starlink was nascent, delivers outsized gains independent of politics.
For OTPP, this windfall strengthens its already solid 111 percent funding ratio and underscores the value of patient, innovation-focused capital allocation.
For SpaceX, the IPO marks a new chapter: greater transparency, access to public markets for talent retention and growth capital, and heightened pressure to deliver on its multi-planetary vision.
All eyes are fixed on whether SpaceX can justify its lofty valuation through sustained execution. For Ontario teachers, the returns are already stellar, but SpaceX, like other Musk companies in the past, has plenty of things to prove. Perhaps the most ideal person for the job is at the helm, hoping to bring the company to a massive valuation.
Tesla has its answer to grow its automotive sales over the next few years, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli says, but it just has to bring it to the U.S.
On Thursday, Michaeli reiterated his $490 price target and the ‘Buy’ rating he already held on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA). However, its automotive division has struggled to show sequential growth over the past few years, mostly due to its focus on AI and Full Self-Driving. Tesla already axed two of its lower-volume vehicles with the Model S and Model X earlier this year.
However, Tesla does not need to engineer an entire new vehicle to trigger an upward tick in sales; it just has to bring it from China to the U.S., Michaeli said.
He is talking about the Model Y L, a slightly larger version of the all-electric crossover that is already available in China. U.S. customers have been pleading with CEO Elon Musk to bring it to the country since its launch in Asia last year, but he’s not convinced of it because of the advent of self-driving and its importance in this particular market.
The problem is that Tesla owners have been requesting something larger that could fit a typical American family. The Model Y L is slightly larger than the standard Model Y, but some are concerned that it could still be too small to fit what most people might need.
Instead, they have asked for a full-size SUV from Tesla.
Tesla gives big hint that it will build Cyber SUV, smaller Cybertruck
Nevertheless, the Model Y L still presents a great opportunity for Tesla in the U.S., and Michaeli says that there is an additional sales opportunity of about 100,000 units, with demand potential falling somewhere between 60,000 and 135,000 units.
TD Cowen’s note to investors also analyzed that Tesla’s growth could come from a stock perspective as well, positively impacting the stock price, as it has been widely reliant on vehicle sales, even though Tesla has truly phased itself away from that being an important metric.
Tesla stands to gain greatly from the introduction of the Model Y L in the U.S., but only if Elon Musk sees it as a viable fit for the market. Families may need to see Tesla bring something larger to the U.S., or they might be forced to buy from another automaker that offers something that fits is needs for more interior space to haul around the kids.
Tesla tipped its hand at where Robotaxi is heading next
Tesla just did something in South Korea that no foreign carmaker has ever done
