One of the biggest worries for those invested in electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA) was that it was getting to be a bad idea. Tesla’s focus was on electric vehicles, and when the government stopped offering free money to buy electric vehicles, that took a lot of the punch out of Tesla’s market. But those who looked closer knew there was more going on here, and now, Tesla is making it clear that it is not just a car company. Yet investors were still clearly concerned, as shares slipped nearly 1.5% in Thursday morning’s trading.
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Even before Tesla’s recent earnings reports, those who looked at Tesla knew there was more going on there. The Powerwall battery system, for example, represented a critical lifeline for power grid users when the power grid failed for one reason or another. And Tesla’s discussions of Master Plan Part IV, as it is known, put some extra life into that notion.
The third quarter update, meanwhile, brought with it a lot of discussion about AI-powered autonomy, as well as “virtual power plant” technology. With a host of new deliveries, products, and energy storage systems, Tesla is on its way from being not just an electric vehicle company, but a full-on energy company that is every bit in keeping with its namesake Nikola Tesla. Tesla’s version 14 of FSD Supervised—Full Self-Driving—emerged, and with it, improved “…responses to complex driving scenarios.”
“Heavy on Optimism, Light on Truth”
But not everyone is so optimistic. Analyst Gordon Johnson with GLJ Research looks for the third quarter analyses to be “…heavy on optimism and light on truth.” Since Johnson has a Sell rating on Tesla, and a price target of just $19.05, it is clear that Johnson does not think much of Tesla at all.
In fact, Johnson noted, the current consensus is that Elon Musk will stay “aggressively upbeat” as he looks to keep Tesla share prices high ahead of the November 1 vote on his new pay package. This is, perhaps, a bit cynical, but may not be without at least an element of truth to it. Johnson even went so far as to suggest that enthusiasm after the earnings call was “…an opportunity to reset short positions.”
Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 14 Buys, 13 Holds, and 10 Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 68.52% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $375.47 per share implies 15.03% downside risk.
