On Monday, Evercore ISI raised its price target on Tesla to $195 from $145 but maintained an ‘In Line’ rating, noting the absence of specifics disappointed investors.
Shares of Tesla, Inc. ($TSLA) saw retail message volume on Stocktwits jump by a massive 536% over the past week, as of Saturday’s close, even as the stock lost over 9% during the same period.
The spike in chatter was fueled by excitement leading up to last Thursday’s Robotaxi event, where CEO Elon Musk introduced the “Cybercab,” a sleek two-seat autonomous sedan, an Art Deco-inspired “Robovan” concept capable of transporting 20 passengers, and updates to Tesla’s humanoid robot, Optimus.
Wall Street, however, was underwhelmed by the launch, criticizing the lack of concrete details on Tesla’s transition from advanced driver-assistance systems to full autonomy.
On Monday, Evercore ISI raised its price target on Tesla to $195 from $145 but maintained an ‘In Line’ rating, noting that while the event had been highly anticipated, the absence of specifics, particularly around the long-rumored Model 2.5 and Tesla’s robot-rideshare plans, disappointed investors.
Additionally, the Verge reported that the Optimus robots showcased at the event were “remote assisted” by humans, with an attendee mentioning that Tesla engineers confirmed the robots used AI to walk, but were not fully autonomous.
However, retail sentiment around Tesla turned ‘bullish’ on Monday from ‘neutral’ the previous day, coinciding with a slight uptick in message volume on Stocktwits.
Some Tesla watchers were also excited by recent developments with Musk’s other company.
SpaceX over the weekend successfully recovered a Starship rocket booster using its launch pad’s mechanical arms for the first time, rather than landing it on ocean platforms.
That stirred discussions about Tesla’s ability to roll out completely autonomous cars using its full-self-driving (FSD) tech.
Tesla investor Sawyer Merritt highlighted the strong connections between Musk’s companies on X (formerly Twitter): “The grid fins on
@SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket booster are powered by electric motors supplied by @Tesla. The Cybertruck’s exterior is made from the same proprietary stainless steel alloy as SpaceX’s Starship. The cross pollination between Tesla and SpaceX is under-appreciated.”
Musk simply replied, “True.”
Tesla’s stock also received backing from Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment Management, which purchased $3 million worth of shares amid the dip on Friday. Still, TSLA is down over 11% for the year.
