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Three reasons Tesla will continue to go higher in ’22, according to one of its biggest bulls
Tesla will close out 2021 with record figures for its production and deliveries, continuing a streak that has dated back to 2012. However, 2021 is likely to be eclipsed by 2022, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who gave three reasons why Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will continue to move upward, making the new year its biggest to date.
Ives, who has been one of Tesla’s most notable bulls on the Street throughout the past couple of years, believes Tesla’s performance in 2021 showed a robust determination to navigate parts and chip shortages, vowing not to let the bottlenecks, which may cause some large automakers to report negative figures compared to last year, affect its production figures in the same fashion. Tesla routinely updated investors and enthusiasts on its ability to deter itself from chip shortages regularly, including a groundbreaking announcement during the Q2 2021 Earnings Call, where the automaker had designed, developed, and validated a series of 19 variants of controllers. This effort from Tesla engineers helped the automaker avoid and mitigate large-scale disruptions in its production and delivery process.
Tesla did this better than any other automaker, Ives said in a Tweet from Monday. The story of 2021 was likely based on this effort alone, which was monumental and could have caused serious problems for some companies, especially those without substantial cash on hand.
Looking forward to 2022, Ives sees Tesla’s impressive performance continuing, listing three main factors in the automaker’s quest to continue its meteoric rise up the ranks of global automotive companies. While Tesla leads every car company on Earth in valuation, the next goal in the company’s sights must be to increase its production and delivery numbers on an annual basis, inching closer to the one million vehicle annual run rate.
Giga Berlin and Giga Texas
Ives lists Tesla’s two new manufacturing facilities as the first point in the company’s quest for a monumental 2022. Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas were set to open in 2021. However, delays due to the pandemic and other political issues in Germany have derailed the start of either of these facilities during this year, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Tesla will come out in 2022, firing on all cylinders. Two new production facilities will launch with massive implications for the company’s growth forecast, as they will both contribute to Tesla’s consistently growing run rate. With these two factories sufficiently ramped in 2022 by Q2 or Q3, if all goes according to plan, Tesla could come close to doubling its current output in 2021 for 2022.
China “Mega-Growth”
China has proven to be one of Tesla’s most successful markets, and Ives believes the increasing run rates out of Gigafactory Shanghai will continue to surge more growth into the company. There is no doubt that Tesla has continued to be a substantial force in China, despite robust competition and a somewhat coordinated media attack on the company’s products. However, it has not stopped Tesla from performing exceptionally well in the sector. Tesla has delivered over 50,000 vehicles per month in China for the past two months. Some monthly figures, which are confirmed by the Chinese Passenger Car Association, are lower than others due to Tesla’s strategy to export vehicles from China to Europe, where Giga Berlin is waiting for approval to begin operation.
Tesla Giga Shanghai shows off its Model 3 production efficiency in recent video
Unit growth fueled by new facilities and increased demand
Ives is forecasting a unit growth of 55 or 60 percent for Tesla in 2022, which can mostly be attributed to the new factories in Texas and Berlin. This could perhaps be Tesla’s key, along with more efficient battery cells, to an even higher stock price and valuation. However, even more, Tesla’s increased production rates could put the company on par with some of the more large-scale car companies, especially if it can cross the one million vehicle production rate annually, which should be easy considering the projected output after ramping production lines at Berlin and Texas.
Ives reiterated his $1,400 price target and the “Outperform” rating he held on Tesla stock. Ives is ranked 22nd out of 7,756 analysts on TipRanks. He also holds a 76% success rate and an average return of 36.4%.
Disclosure: Joey Klender is a TSLA Shareholder.
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Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reports its earnings for Q3 today. Here’s what to expect, as the company will reveal its balance sheet after the market closes on Wednesday.
Tesla already reported deliveries just after Q3 ended, and it demolished Wall Street consensus estimates of roughly 462,000 vehicles. Tesla delivered 486,532 cars in the third quarter, which was a big beat, but was down 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year. Energy storage deployments were 13.7 GWh, up year-over-year.
Tesla showrooms picked clean ahead of Q3 end as demand looks strong
For the quarter, analysts have already compiled their predictions for what Tesla will report this afternoon:
- Total Revenues: $28.34B
- Non-GAAP EPS: $0.43
- Operating Margin: 2.5%
- Operating Income: $721M
- Free Cash Flow: ~-$4.51B
Here are a few things we are looking forward to hearing about on the call:
Automotive Gross Margin and Overall Profitability
This was 16.3 percent in Q2, down from 19.2 percent in Q1, and was impacted by warranty charges and some fading regulatory credits. Consensus implies overall gross margin near 18 percent, but a miss here would potentially reinforce concerns about pricing pressure on its vehicles.
Pay attention to energy storage margins as well, especially since Tesla missed GWh expectations, although it was still a strong quarter.
Robotaxi/Cybercab, Unsupervised FSD, and Optimus Progress
The Say questions from retail investors usually focus on these types of projects, and this quarter is no different. Scaling the Cybercab fleet beyond Austin amid the open NHTSA safety review, timeline for Unsupervised FSD in customer cars, Robotaxi unit economics, and Optimus cost per unit plus when it could start generating revenue, are all things to be looking for.
Any concrete timelines or regulatory path details will likely move the stock more than the near-term numbers. SpaceX merger speculation, which was detailed during SpaceX’s earnings call last night, may also surface, although the key details were shared last night.
Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for
Say Investor Questions
- How does the Cybercab fleet scale past Austin, and what’s the regulatory path outside Texas given NHTSA’s open safety review?
- When can we anticipate FSD unsupervised in customer cars?
- When will the CyberCab be available for customer purchase/ownership?
- What’s the unit economics per paid robotaxi mile, and how does it compare to the thirty-cent target?
- Tesla has acknowledged that HW3 vehicles cannot support unsupervised FSD. When will owners know whether they can upgrade their hardware for free, and when will Tesla provide a clear plan?
The full Earnings Call will be streamed this evening after market close around 5 p.m. this evening.
SpaceX confirmed the date of Starship’s 15th launch window with some massive ambitions for the mission, as it will attempt to catch Ship for the first time.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed during SpaceX’s Earnings Call last night on October 20 that it would launch Starship for its 15th test flight in November, and there are some incredible things the company wants to try, making it perhaps the most groundbreaking launch in the program’s history.
SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms
The most major development of the call was SpaceX’s intention to catch Ship alongside catching the Super Heavy Booster, something that has happened in the past. SpaceX showed an animation of the Ship catch, which will be done on the launch tower’s chopsticks:
SpaceX has released a new Starship tower catch animation for the upcoming Flight 15! https://t.co/kStn01Da8u
— Truthful🛰️ (@Truthful_ast) October 20, 2026
This monumental goal is to catch both the Ship and Booster in a dual-catch scenario, an incredible feat since SpaceX has never been able to reuse a Ship after launch. Musk said it would be “the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered,” and said it would be a “profound technology milestone.”
Musk said the odds of success on this first Ship catch attempt are “more likely than not,” but SpaceX is ultimately prepared for more tries moving forward. The SpaceX frontman said that, starting next year, Starship would have a “steady stream” of flights through the end of the year.
The cadence will accelerate in 2027, with Musk stating the company plans to target weekly flights in the first half of 2027 and twice-weekly by year-end.
The Flight 15 attempt follows that of Flight 14, which took off in late September and was Starship’s first orbital mission. It deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, accomplished a controlled ocean splashdown of both stages, and shed more light on potential challenges for the program moving forward.
As of now, the Starship program is firing on all cylinders.
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Wall Street analysts rapidly raised price targets on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) after the company reported a bullish third quarter for 2026 following the market close on October 20. Shares were sent sharply higher in after-hours and premarket trading.
SpaceX posted revenue of $14.6 billion, a 161 percent year-over-year increase that comfortably topped consensus estimates, which fell near $12.7 billion. The company also posted a net profit of $4.4 billion from a prior-year loss, with adjusted EBITDA reaching $8.8 billion.
More price target movement:
🚀 Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its target to $345 from $246 (Overweight).
🚀 Barclays raised its target to $300 from $254 (Overweight).
🚀 Citi increased its target to $240 from $200 (Buy),
🚀 UBS moved to $230 from $210 (Buy)
🚀TD Cowen raised its target to $224 from $200 (Buy).
🚀Morgan Stanley held an Overweight rating with a $300 target.
🚀Other firms also adjusted higher, including Wells Fargo (to $274 from $214) and Clear Street (to $248 from $217). Analysts broadly cited the strong quarterly print, accelerating AI compute expansion, Starlink progress, and Starship milestones as drivers of higher long-term growth and earnings power.— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 21, 2026
Its Super Intelligence (AI) division generated roughly $7.6 billion and became the largest revenue contributor, growing nearly 830 percent year-over-year, while the Connectivity segment delivered $5.2 billion on strong subscriber additions that lifted the consumer base to 13.6 million for Starlink.
The Earnings Call proved especially catalytic, as CEO Elon Musk and CFO Bret Johnsen outlined Q1 2027 revenue guidance of $33 billion to $37 billion, which was far above the roughly $22 billion analysts had modeled, alongside fourth-quarter capital-expenditure plans of $35 billion to $40 billion focused on AI compute infrastructure at sites including Memphis and Southaven.
SpaceX delivers blockbuster Q3 results as Super Intelligence segment booms
Management targets 2.5 to 3 gigawatts of nameplate compute capacity by year-end and discussed pathways to 13 gigawatts or more by the end of 2027. Musk described relentless demand from hyperscalers and other customers, with compute pricing supporting payback periods of less than a year and potentially as short as six months.
Additional highlights included Starship’s recent orbital success and V3 satellite deployment, Starlink pricing and enterprise momentum, rapid Grok Bot adoption, spectrum expansion plans, and the formation of special committees to explore a possible combination with Tesla.
These elements prompted a wave of price-target increases:
- JPMorgan more than doubled its target to $500 from $240 while maintaining an Overweight rating.
- Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its target to $345 from $246 (Overweight).
- Barclays raised its target to $300 from $254 (Overweight).
- Citi increased its target to $240 from $200 (Buy),
- UBS moved to $230 from $210 (Buy), and
- TD Cowen raised its target to $224 from $200 (Buy).
- Morgan Stanley held an Overweight rating with a $300 target.
- Other firms also adjusted higher, including Wells Fargo (to $274 from $214) and Clear Street (to $248 from $217). Analysts broadly cited the strong quarterly print, accelerating AI compute expansion, Starlink progress, and Starship milestones as drivers of higher long-term growth and earnings power.
Shares, which closed at $147.79 on October 20, jumped roughly 8 percent in early premarket trading on October 21 as investors digested the results and the newly elevated Street targets.
The average analyst price target has moved higher, which reflects greater conviction in SpaceX’s trajectory across launch, connectivity, and the Super Intelligence business, even as elevated spending remains a point of focus.
Tesla reports Q3 Earnings today: here’s what to expect
SpaceX confirms Starship 15 launch window with massive ambitions
