Tesla Stock Rises Nearly 2%. Selling Cars Is Now Less Important Than This

Dow Jones01-06

Tesla Motors stock was rising in early trading Monday after a wild start to the new year.

It turns out, selling electric vehicles isn’t the most important thing right now. Artificial intelligence is number one.

Shares of the electric vehicle maker were up 1.63% at $417.12 in early trading Monday while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.1% and 0.4%, respectively.

Coming into Monday trading, Tesla stock was up about 2% so far this year. It’s a modest move that belies the path shares took to get there.

Tesla stock fell almost $26, or 6.1%, on Jan. 2 after the company reported weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter deliveries. Tesla delivered a record 495,570 vehicles. Wall Street was looking for closer to 507,000 vehicles.

Shares bounced back on Jan. 3, gaining about $30, or 8.2%, after investors had a day to think about results and Canaccord analyst George Gianarikas raised his Tesla stock price target to $404 a share from $298 and maintained his Buy rating.

Gianarikas’ target bump had more to do with AI than electric cars. “Despite weaker-than-expected deliveries, we are sticking with our Buy,” wrote the analyst, adding the company has “a generational set of growth opportunities ahead, including EVs, autonomy/AI, energy storage, and robotics.”

Tesla plans to sell AI-trained humanoid robots in the future. For now, AI-trained self-driving cars are a cause for optimism. Analysts have raised their price targets by an average of about $65 since the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. The consensus on Wall Street is that the second Trump administration will make it easier for Tesla to launch its self-driving, AI-trained robotaxi service in late 2025.

Through Friday trading, shares gained $159 since the election, adding some $510 billion to Tesla’s market value.

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Comments

a4xrbj1
01-06
a4xrbj1
This is BS. Tesla's revenue is from selling cars, even with the recent rise of Megapacks the total energy business only accounts to roughly 100 million of its market cap of 1.3 trillion. Robotaxis and robotics account for 0 and this isn't going to change soon. Tesla is making its profit from selling energy credits to other car makers which will become less important as not only they are ramping up their EV business with a lot of new models but also with potential reduction or even elimination of these by the Trump Administration.