Tesla (TSLA) stock rose 5% on Monday after CEO Elon Musk announced that the company’s long-awaited robotaxi would debut on August 8. It is still being determined whether Tesla will finally launch a low-cost EV.
Emmanuel Rosner of Deutsche Bank said the news about the robotaxi was “thesis-changing” for Tesla.
The downside, however, is that Tesla has abandoned a “key reason” for many to purchase the stock: the Model 2 as a volume play that will “reaccelerate volume, margins, and FCF,” according to Rosner. It also implies that the bull thesis relies on Tesla unlocking the code of self-driving, which necessitates traversing several legal hurdles and gathering sufficient data to train the software.
Rosner rates the stock Buy and sets a price target of $189.
On the other hand, prominent Tesla bull Tasha Keeney of ARK Invest believes Tesla’s long-term potential heavily depends on self-driving and autonomy.
ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood recently restated the firm’s $2,000 price objective for Tesla, predicting $10 trillion in income from robotaxi operations.
On the other end of the spectrum is Craig Irwin of Roth Capital, who is far more suspicious about the robotaxi. He believes that today’s stock movement is technical rather than fundamental. Irwin has a Neutral rating on the stock and a price objective of $85.00.
