The Kelley Blue Book (KBB) 2019 Best Resale Value Award Winners are in, and Tesla’s Model 3 has landed at the top of the electric vehicle category with a projected 69.3% resale value after 36 months and 48.7% after 60 months. Its SUV brethren, the Model X, achieved a worthy status of its own, placing 2nd in the same category at 56.7% (36 months) and 34.3% (60 months). While Tesla’s fleet of vehicles are high-value luxury cars, their ability to retain a large portion of their original selling price as used cars is yet another data point driving their desired position in the consumer market.
The recognition given by the long-trusted consumer automotive resource in its announcement of the award spoke highly of the vehicle’s appeal to buyers, something which played a role in its valuation: “The Tesla Model 3 has a cultural magic and desirability about it that made people willing to wait months and even years to own one. People don’t like Tesla Model 3s — they crave them,” noted KBB in a tweet. This sentiment from KBB as a 92-year veteran in car assessments, of course, adds yet another confirmation of something many Tesla owners and reservation holders already assumed to be true.
The @Tesla #Model3 has a cultural magic and desirability about it that made people willing to wait months and even years to own one — that's how you hold on to your resale value over time. #KBBBestResaleValue
— Kelley Blue Book (@KelleyBlueBook) January 24, 2019
Thanks to Tesla’s customer-driven design and development process, features such as class-leading range, a vast Supercharging network, over-the-air software updates, great-looking design, and overall technology serving convenient, practical, and entertainment purposes, the company’s two newest vehicles are handily standing out against competitors. In KBB’s overview page detailing the Model 3’s category win, more praise along these lines was offered: “For those who can afford it, the smallest Tesla offers usability, joyful road manners, and an intriguing glimpse of a gasoline-free future.” The vehicle’s 5-star safety rating from the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) in every category was also noted as a driving price point in a general overview page about the Model 3.
The annual KBB Best Resale Value Awards compares a variety of vehicle resale metrics over 36 and 60 month time frames and then sorts them into three categories: Best Brand/Luxury Brand (evaluating makers’ overall portfolio), Overall Top Ten Winners (best resale values in all categories), and Category Winners (24 categories covering every class, shape, and price). According to the KBB website detailing the award, the values are calculated based on several factors including vehicle specification and trim levels, sales data, market data, and segment competition, among others. While the general system is meant to provide a fair comparison, certain numbers are worth considering more broadly for a fuller picture of Tesla’s Model 3 and Model X in the market.
Given the chance to compete in categories that would fit outside of an electric vehicle-only comparison, the Model 3 would beat every other sedan by a large margin at the 36-month mark. The Best Mid-Size Car, Subaru Legacy, was given a 51.8% resale value at 36 months and 38.4% at 60 months. As Best Luxury Car, the Audi A7 came in at 47.3% and 32.3%, respectively. Compared to the gasoline-powered winner, Chevy Tahoe, in the Best Full-Size SUV category at 55% and 43%, the Model X would have prevailed at 56.7% and 34.3%.
Perhaps as more legacy auto manufacturers come over to the all-electric side, the categories will become more agnostic about vehicle power sources for awards.
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.
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
