Investor's Corner
Tesla price targets drop for varying reasons, but some feel like a reach
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) price targets were dropped by several firms due to varying reasons, but some feel like a reach.
It is no secret Tesla stock has been beaten and battered so far this year. As of February 6, shares are down over 25 percent, and the slide truly started to get intense after the company’s Q4 Earnings Call.
While some analysts called the call “a trainwreck,” others’ focuses were on a wide variety of issues. Some of them that were spoken of were Tesla’s lack of annual guidance, no narrative on price cuts, and a general lack of strategy.
Shares felt the pressure shortly after the call, but firms are still trying to grasp their outlook for the stock as Tesla will navigate what it calls the middle of “two growth waves” as it prepares to launch the next-gen platform sometime in 2025.
Piper Sandler Blames ‘Aging Product Lineup’
Piper Sandler’s Alexander Potter said in a note to investors that more price cuts are likely to take place across Tesla’s vehicles in the future because of an “aging product lineup.”
Earlier in this article, I discussed some reasons for price target downgrades feeling like a reach. This is one of them.
Tesla has done things differently than a lot of traditional car companies, but when you think about its models, there are a few things that the automaker does in a similar fashion.
A lot of OEMs keep the same nameplates on cars for years, updating the looks and tech to offer what feels like a “new” product and encourage buyers to purchase an “updated” version. The Civic, for example, is just one of many vehicles to be developed in “generations,” and every few years, it gets a new look and some new features.
Tesla is doing that with the Model 3 with the release of the “Highland,” if that is what it can be referred to as. The Model S and Model X were updated just a few years ago, and the Model Y is currently in the process of an update as well, according to reports.
Tesla also just launched the Cybertruck in November, and it has started deliveries.
It is tough to say that it feels like Tesla’s product lineup is “aging,” at least from my perspective, because:
- The vehicles constantly get better and change through software updates
- Three of the four vehicles in Tesla’s lineup that have been around for more than a year have either been updated or are relatively new. The Model S and Model X were updated in 2021, the Model 3 in late 2023, and the Model Y is only a few years old.
Price cuts from Tesla are more than likely not a result of an “aging product,” but likely to find a sweet spot for demand triggers.
Musk said last year that prices truly depend on market conditions and that the company thinks it “makes sense to sacrifice margins in favor of making more vehicles.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says risky margin sacrifice ‘makes sense’ to up production
Price cuts seem to be more focused on getting cars out of the door and less on incentivizing people to buy an aging product.
Potter trimmed his price target to $225 from $295.
Daiwa Worries About Tesla Governance
Daiwa Securities downgraded Tesla stock to Neutral from Outperform and trimmed its price target to $195 from $245.
Analysts at the firm state that Tesla’s increasing focus on governance concerns could limit the company’s propensity to invest in the long term and could hinder innovation. It did state that long-term investors could be rewarded, but they should be prepared for increased volatility.
Most of the governance issues stem from Musk losing his compensation package after a Delaware Chancery Court Judge ruled it was unfair to Tesla investors, despite the pay package being approved by those shareholders several years ago.
Vivek Ramaswamy calls Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package situation ‘a threat to capitalism’
As a result of the decision, Tesla has hinted it could ditch Delaware for its state of incorporation and head to Texas instead, where its headquarters is located.
Tesla shares are up 1.23 percent today as of 11:40 a.m. on the East Coast.
Disclosure: I own Tesla stock.
I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.
Electric vehicle maker Lucid Group has denied rumors of an imminent bankruptcy after a report from this morning sent the stock on a dramatic drop on Wall Street, seeing losses of more than 40 percent during trading hours.
Lucid’s Director of Communications, Nick Twork, responded to the report from Eletric-Vehicles.com, which stated the company’s restructuring advisor, AlixPartners, was asked to review two decisions: taking Lucid shares private or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The report also claims AlixPartners told the Lucid board to “concentrate on Gravity production while improving its quality, and to temporarily hold back the Lucid Air, the sedan that has defined the company since its launch.”
Twork said:
$LCID The rumors are completely false. The company has sufficient liquidity to carry its operations well into next year, as recently published in its last quarterly filings, and it has not formed any special Board committee to explore the scenarios reported today. Our focus is…
— Nick Twork (@ntwork) July 14, 2026
Shares rebounded after the response to the report, halving its losses as the trading day neared 3 p.m. Eastern.
Lucid has struggled to get its sales off the ground and into more respectable numbers, but the company is in its early years, when things are hard to begin with. It is also backed by several notable investors, including the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has nearly limitless money and likely would not ditch an investment of this size so soon.
Lucid shares were down just 14 percent at the time of publication, a far cry from the 55 percent its losses topped out at during the day.
Tesla received a price target upgrade just on the heels of what was a crazy successful quarter for its automotive business, as the company reported a delivery beat of over 15 percent for Q2.
Jefferies analysts are upping Tesla’s price target (NASDAQ: TSLA) to $400 from $375, while maintaining their “Hold” rating on shares, and the strong automotive deliveries from Q2 is a big reason. However, there are some other catalysts that Jefferies believes position Tesla for a strong position in the second half of the year.
Strong Deliveries
Tesla reported 480,000 deliveries for Q2, while Wall Street was between 395,000 and 405,000, as an overall consensus. It was an incredibly strong quarter from a delivery perspective, and Tesla sold well more than it produced during the three months.
Tesla crushes Wall Street expectations, beats delivery estimates by over 15 percent
While vehicle deliveries are not necessarily looked at in the light that they used to be, Tesla still maintains a lot of advantages for keeping deliveries strong. With the loss of the $7,500 EV Tax Credit last year, Tesla still maintains a strong demand case for its EVs.
Robotaxi Performance
Tesla has been operating Robotaxi for over a year now, as it launched in Austin in mid-2025. That program has expanded to Houston and Dallas, the San Francisco Bay Area, and, most recently, Miami, Florida, the suite’s first appearance in the Sunshine State.
While the Robotaxi suite is still in its early phases and Tesla is working through things like fleet size and wait times, the company has been able to undercut the pricing of its competitors and has a great safety record.
Merger Speculation with Tesla and SpaceX
This is perhaps the biggest topic that many are speaking about with Tesla and SpaceX, and it is the one thing that seems to be on the mind of every investor.
Jefferies warns that growing talk of a Tesla-SpaceX merger could cause Tesla stock to trade more like a SpaceX proxy, which may disconnect it from underlying automotive fundamentals. SpaceX has a lot going for it, especially its compute deals that have been widely publicized as of late.
Profitability in New Projects Could Take Some Time
Tesla has a few long-term ventures in the pipeline, most notably the Optimus project and Robotaxi, which is launched but will take several years to expand to a meaningful level that resonates with everyday people.
This is something that investors need to be careful of. Tesla’s projects could take some time to round out, so Jefferies advises that these may carry initial losses, rather than immediate profit. Seasoned Tesla investors have echoed something like this for a long time; they knew going in it would not be an open-and-shut strategy. It was going to take time.
These new projects are no different.
Investor's Corner
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope heads to orbit this August aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with massive scientific ambitions.
SpaceX is set to play a central role in one of NASA’s most anticipated science missions in years. The company’s Falcon Heavy rocket, currently the most powerful operational launch vehicle in the world, will carry the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit on August 30 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Roman is now in final preparations inside the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, where on June 26 technicians used a crane to lift the observatory into a specialized stand for fueling and pre-launch testing.
Roman is named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief of astronomy, whose career helped shape how the agency approaches space science.
NASA chose SpaceX Falcon Heavy because of Roman’s needs to reach a specific orbit far from Earth, well beyond where a standard Falcon 9 can deliver it. The Falcon Heavy, which first flew in 2018, has since become NASA’s go-to option for missions that need serious muscle without the cost and complexity of older launch systems.
Celebrating SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Tesla Roadster launch, seven years later (Op-Ed)
Roman will carry a field of view at least 100 times wider than the Hubble Space Telescope, meaning it can photograph enormous swaths of the universe in a single shot rather than the narrow slices Hubble captures. That difference in scale is significant. While Hubble reshaped our understanding of the cosmos over 30 years, Roman is built to work faster and wider, surveying hundreds of millions of galaxies at once.
One of Roman’s most compelling capabilities is its potential to discover and photograph planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, and with enough precision to directly image planets that would otherwise be lost. That means scientists could study the atmosphere and surface characteristics of distant worlds rather than simply confirming they exist. Combined with Roman’s sweeping field of view, the telescope could detect thousands of exoplanets, and some of those planets may be in habitable zones where liquid water could exist. No telescope currently in operation has this level of power and capability. That capability alone could change what we know about other worlds, and perhaps finally answer the question: are we the only intelligent lifeforms in existence?
What Roman actually finds once it reaches orbit is an open question, and that is exactly what makes this launch worth watching.
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