Tesla Analysts Hike Price Targets, But Production Ambitions Weigh
Shares of Tesla Motors ( TSLA ) were down at a seven-week low Thursday morning after the electric car maker’s late-Wednesday Q1 earnings report, despite getting at least two price-target hikes from analysts. Tesla reported in-line revenue and a slightly smaller loss than expected for Q1, but the main topic of discussion on the conference call with analysts was the upcoming launch of the Model 3 economy sedan and Tesla’s announcement that it’s moving its 500,000-vehicle production target up by two years, to 2018. The latter led to significant hikes in spending guidance for the back half of this year. Tesla, though, has had production issues with its main product, the Model S, and with its new Model X SUV. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, speaking on the company’s earnings conference call late Wednesday, said the target date for volume production of the Model 3 is July 1, but at the same time he admitted that it’s an “impossible date,” given how many components have to be lined up for production to start. IBD Take: What to make of Tesla’s up-and-down stock? IBD Stock Checkup can help. “Nonetheless, we need to, both internally and with suppliers, take that date seriously, and there need to be some penalties for anyone, internally or externally, who does not meet that time frame,” Musk said. Musk also admonished Wall Street not to compare production of the Model 3 to the troubled production of the Model X SUV, saying, “It’s always tempting for people to reason by analogy instead of first principles.” Goldman Sachs analyst Patrick Archambault, however, wrote in a research note that Model X production is still an overhang. “Although management disagrees, we think that the Model X will be viewed as a litmus test for Tesla’s manufacturing capability and that the back-end-loaded nature of the delivery guidance — requiring quarterly production of 25,000 units in Q3/Q4 (15,510 in Q1 2016) — does leave some near-term execution risk,” Archambault wrote. Nonetheless, Archambault added that “the disruptive case has unquestionably increased in likelihood — which recently led us to raise our upside case probability to 35% from 25%.” He raised his price target on Tesla stock to 250 from 245, while keeping a neutral rating. Robert W. Baird analyst Ben Kallo raised his price target to 338 from 330 and maintained an outperform rating. On the call, Musk also said that despite Wednesday’s news reports to the contrary, production chief Greg Reichow isn’t actually leaving the company. Tesla had said that Reichow is taking a “leave of absence,” though it didn’t specify a return date. Tesla stock was down more than 4% in morning trading on the stock market today, near 212.