Remember when electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA) offered the projection that, one day, 80% of Tesla’s future earnings were likely to come from the Optimus robot program? Well, that bucket has a whole new hole in it that needs addressed, and quickly. Tesla lost another one of its Optimus developers. Yet investors did not seem especially perturbed by this, with Tesla shares ticking up just over 1.5% in Friday afternoon’s trading.
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So far, Tesla’s Optimus robot program has been a little, well, lackluster. Its public demonstrations have all involved humans using remote control, and while that is not without appeal, the idea of autonomous humanoid robots seems like it is still a long way out, even for Tesla. And now, Tesla just lost Ashish Kumar, who ran the Optimus AI team for the last two years.
Worse yet, Kumar is apparently now part of Meta Platforms’ (META) AI team serving as a researcher. So Kumar and his PhD in artificial intelligence from Berkeley are now working elsewhere, and Tesla’s robotics program is that much farther behind as a result.
Big New Batteries
Meanwhile, the electric cars—which are likely going to be the lion’s share of Tesla’s revenue for some time to come now—got a bit of a boost from a new development from Panasonic (PCRFF). Specifically, Panasonic recently developed a new line of battery cells that will offer Tesla vehicles significantly higher range as a result of their use.
The new cells will be available in around two years, reports suggest, and will provide potentially as much as 90 more miles to Tesla’s range. Thus, the Model Y will see mileage increase from around 357 miles on a charge to closer to 450 total. That would put it on par with several different models and make the Model Y that much more attractive in response, even without government incentives to buy in.
Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 15 Buys, 12 Holds, and eight Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 74.96% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $323.94 per share implies 23.56% downside risk.
