What You Missed This Week in EVs and Clean Energy

Institutional investors and professional traders rely on The Fly to keep up-to-the-second on breaking news in the electric vehicle and clean energy space, as well as which stocks in these sectors that the best analysts on Wall Street are saying to buy and sell.

From the hotly-debated high-flier Tesla (TSLA), Wall Street’s newest darling Rivian (RIVN), traditional-stalwarts turned EV-upstarts GM (GM) and Ford (F) to the numerous SPAC-deal makers that have come public in this red-hot space, The Fly has you covered with “Charged,” a weekly recap of the top stories and expert calls in the sector.

PRODUCTION HALTED: Tesla halted some production lines due to a global IT outage early Friday morning, Business Insider’s Grace Kay reported. The outage, linked to an issue at CrowdStrike (CRWD), affected servers and manufacturing devices, but did not impact every production line, Tesla told staff in a notice on Friday. Tesla factory workers have yet to receive notice of when the impacted lines will go back into production, sources told BI.

BUYER AHEAD OF RESULTS: Baird is a buyer of Tesla shares into the company’s Q2 earnings report and keeps an Outperform rating on the name with a $280 price target. The firm likes the setup and thinks there is a high probability of an earnings beat. A more stable pricing environment during the quarter, higher revenue from full self-driving, and the “large beat” in its Energy segment all support a solid quarter, the firm tells investors in a research note. Baird also sees the Robotaxi event as a positive catalyst for the stock. It thinks Tesla is likely to deploy its own Robotaxi fleet in limited cities to begin the rollout.

CA REGISTRATIONS DROP: The California New Car Dealers Association has released its California auto outlook covering the first half of 2024. California’s new light vehicle registrations fell by 0.7% year-to-date compared to last year, totaling 892,363. Tesla’s future “appears to be dwindling as the brand’s sales continue to decline in the Golden State,” according to the association. The company’s registrations are down 17% year-to-date compared to last year. While the Model Y remains the top-selling car in California, “Tesla sales may have peaked,” it writes. The agency says the new data marks the brand’s third consecutive quarter with registration declines. Registrations dipped 24.1% in Q2, 7.8% in Q1, and 9.8 in Q4 of last year, it added.

Click here to check out Tesla’s recent Media Buzz Sentiment as measured by TipRanks.

SELL SUNPOWER: Mizuho downgraded SunPower (SPWR) to Underperform from Neutral with a price target of 50c, down from $4. The firm cites news that the company is stopping lease and power purchase agreements installations, the most favored financing options in the industry, likely due to balance sheet constraints, for the downgrade. SunPower’s balance sheet constraints have been exacerbated due to the company’s inability to raise capital without a 2023 annual filing, Mizuho tells investors in a research note. The firm says SunPower is “running out of time and cash.”

JUDGE CLEARS SALE: A bankruptcy judge has determined that Fisker (FSRN) is allowed to sell over 3,000 of its Ocean SUVs to a vehicle leasing company, a deal that will give the defunct EV startup a maximum of $46.25M, TechCrunch’s Sean O’Kane reports. The move clears a path for the remainder of Fisker’s bankruptcy process to play out as it continues to liquidate what’s left, the author notes.