Tesla investors may be in for some more pain ahead if the market fails to adopt Elon Musk’s dream of an autonomous future, according to Guggenheim. “Through it all one thing is clear, Tesla is increasingly an investment underpinned by autonomy, a challenging balancing act requiring investors to buy into a vision of the future with limited supporting evidence, while simultaneously ignoring the current light vehicle business deterioration, in our view,” wrote analyst Ronald Jewsikow. He retained his $126 price target and sell rating on the electric vehicle stock, reflecting about 29% downside from Monday’s close. Shares have already tumbled 29% this year amid rising China competition and weak demand. TSLA YTD mountain Shares this year How Tesla fares going forward depends heavily on Musk and the company’s foray into autonomous vehicles, Jewsikow wrote. “We continue to struggle with bullish overconfidence in steady state robotaxi economics, commercialization timelines for a business unlikely to operate at scale over the next 10 years (5 year timeline shift cuts [net present value] in half), and limited real world [Level4/Level5 autonomy] data to inform debates,” he said. Jewsikow also lowered his second-quarter delivery estimates to 409,000 from 440,000, citing the lack of a “credible path to 2024 volume growth” and weak quarterly data.
