So we know that the self-driving systems at electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA) are not complete winners. Rather, they are partial winners in certain cases that still need to be watched, which is why it is called Full Self-Driving (Supervised). But there may be a new parenthetical coming to that name soon, as Tesla is looking to bundle its Insurance initiative with FSD. Investors were less than pleased, though, and sent shares down modestly in Thursday afternoon’s trading.
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New trading tool for TSLA bearsTesla revealed that its Safety Score 3.0 will automatically offer a perfect score of 100 for drivers who activate FSD while they drive. That in turn will increase the overall average and reduce the costs of insurance to those drivers who take advantage of the product. Under normal circumstances, Tesla uses driving data like acceleration rates, average follow distance, braking rates, and speed to establish its Safety Score. Safer driving means lower insurance costs. But now, Tesla will basically assume its FSD system does the job perfectly.
This would be a huge surprise to anyone the FSD system almost caused an accident with, like Joshua Brown, whose FSD system basically decided to ignore a railroad crossing. But considering how many miles the FSD system drives without incident on a daily basis, Tesla may figure that it is not only issuing a vote of confidence in its system, but also, it is playing the odds that most of the time nothing will happen.
A New Alliance
But Tesla’s work goes beyond this, and a new alliance has the Semi clearly in mind. Tesla is getting together with Pilot to establish a massive network of charging locations. This move combines Tesla’s charging technology with the huge array of Pilot travel centers out there to allow an easy way to build infrastructure for electric semi-trucks.
The first Megacharger sites, as they are known, will open this summer, with locations on I-5, I-10, and a range of other locations in several states known for being “major freight corridors,” reports note. This will be big for Tesla today, but as other electric semis come into play, they too will be able to use the Pilot Megacharger network to recharge their vehicles and help keep freight rolling throughout the United States.
Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 13 Buys, 11 Holds, and six Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 62.39% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $401.13 per share implies 3.17% upside potential.
