Normally, a steering wheel is a pretty standard piece of equipment for a car purchase. Electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA), meanwhile, considers it an option, as far as its Cybercab plan goes. And now, for those concerned that one day someone will need to manually intervene and change a Cybercab’s trajectory, Tesla is adding an optional steering wheel. The move was well received with investors, who sent shares notching up fractionally in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
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New reports note that Tesla is not opposed to adding certain key features to the Cybercab to make it a more attractive buy. The steering wheel is a big one, but it is not alone. Tesla is also willing to add pedals to get more interest, according to word from Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla’s board of directors. The biggest reason, reports suggest, is that regulators seem to have a problem with cars—even those clearly meant for self-driving—selling without a means to intervene if needed.
The fact that Tesla has been at odds with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, meanwhile, may have had something to do with that as well. Given that Duffy has also been serving as NASA’s acting administrator, and recently reopened a contract between NASA and SpaceX, Musk’s moves to placate regulators may be a smart one indeed, ultimately.
Pricey Politics
As it turns out, CEO Elon Musk‘s run-ins with the government have been a little detrimental to Tesla’s bottom line. Reports noted that Musk’s political stances have cost Tesla over one million electric vehicles’ worth of sales.
Researchers are calling this the “Musk partisan effect,” reports note. Apparently, had Elon Musk kept more distance from the Trump administration, as well as his various stances expressed on X, formerly Twitter, Tesla would have seen United States sales that were between 67% and 83% higher than they were, roughly one million to 1.26 million extra vehicles sold. That is, of course, debatable, because we have seen declining demand for electric vehicles all over the market and have been seeing these circumstances for some time.
Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 14 Buys, 11 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 $382.54 per share implies 16.65% downside risk.
