Today, so far, has been crammed full of bad news about electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA), especially about places in which Tesla is not selling well. But CEO Elon Musk is not particularly concerned, because he looks to get value out of a whole new market segment: the Optimus robot series. Investors were skeptical, and they sent shares down nearly 1.5% in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
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Sweden, China, India…these places are all faltering in Tesla sales. But Tesla’s CEO believes that the cars are not going to be the big draw much longer anyway. In fact, Musk declared in a recent X post, he believes that 80% of Tesla’s value will come from humanoid robot sales. As far back as last year, Musk has looked for the Optimus to be a major value-add, with Optimus boosting Tesla to a $25 trillion company.
For reference, that would have made Tesla worth about half the S&P 500 back during the time Musk made the comment. Tesla expects to roll out 5,000 Optimus robots by the end of this year. Musk also made it clear that Tesla is still “…by far the best in the world at real-world AI,” which would be a big part of those robots. And with several of Tesla’s expansion ventures still a ways from taking off, the question is more a matter of what Tesla does in the meantime, until the robots take off.
A Growing Problem for Tesla Owners
Meanwhile, there is a phenomenon that is hitting Tesla owners where they live, and literally: cable theft. Apparently, Tesla owners who dock their cars at their homes, charging them overnight, are waking up to find the chargers docked, but the cable removed. Pictures provided by those impacted suggest that the cables are being cut off, potentially harvested for scrap copper.
The problem seems to be spreading as well. Reports suggest 83 chargers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area were vandalized, leading to about $46,000 in repair costs. Multiple cases were also reported in the Seattle area.
Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 13 Buys, 15 Holds, and eight Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 58.53% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $306.42 per share implies 6.93% downside risk.
