Tesla stock (TSLA) is on the rise as investors await the company’s long-anticipated robotaxi debut and its third quarter sales figures.
Shares of the Elon Musk-helmed electric vehicle company jumped nearly 2% on Tuesday morning after rising 5% in Monday trading. Tesla is set to finally unveil its driverless cabs on Oct. 10 after months of delays. Also in early October, the company will announce its deliveries for the third quarter. Wall Street analysts forecast sales to rise 6% from last year to about 460,000 EVs.
Barclays analyst Daniel Levy said in a bullish note to investors on Monday that he expects Tesla deliveries to jump higher than that consensus estimate. Levy forecasts Tesla will deliver about 470,000 EVs, which would represent an 8% jump from last year. He pointed to an uptick in sales in China, despite far underperforming domestic rival BYD (1211.HK).
“Given the positive data points reported thus far in the quarter, particularly in China, we believe Tesla's sales trajectory is well understood and investors are expecting a stronger result,” Levy wrote on Monday.
In a separate interview with Yahoo Finance on Tuesday, Levy said he expects Tesla to report modestly larger profit margins in its upcoming quarterly earnings report. Still, Levy has maintained his equal rate rating of Tesla stock, noting that his team is "managing our expectations" given rising tariffs that will impact the EV market.
Tesla has faced a number of high-profile issues over the past year — from major safety concerns and mass recalls to factory shutdowns, layoffs, and heightened competition in China. Three senior Tesla executives resigned this spring. But after a dismal first quarter earnings report, Tesla fared better than expected in the following period thanks to price cuts. Second quarter deliveries totaled nearly 440,000, easily topping analysts' expectations.
The company's stock has completed a second significant 2024 turnaround. Its gains on Monday put it relatively flat for the year. Levy said “Robotaxi Day” will likely add to that upward trajectory.
Tesla is betting on succeeding in a market where others have faced hurdles. Like his takes on space travel and brain chips, Musk’s promise of a world filled with driverless cars seems far off. Other attempts to introduce autonomous taxis into city traffic have been chaotic — even disastrous.
Alphabet-owned (GOOG) Waymo was investigated by the federal government after crashes and traffic violations this spring, and in June, the company recalled its fleet of nearly 700 driverless cars. Waymo is back at it, though, and recently announced an expanded partnership with Uber that will bring its cabs to more cities.
General Motors-owned (GM) Cruise will also take to the road again after suspending operations last year when a driverless cab hit a pedestrian and dragged her 20 feet — this time with human drivers.
“Most people still have no idea how crushingly good Tesla FSD will get,” Musk said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, in late March, referring to Tesla’s “Full Self-Drive” mode. “It will be superhuman to such a degree that it will seem strange in the future that humans drove cars, even while exhausted and drunk!”
After being repeatedly pushed back, Tesla’s robotaxi day on Oct. 10 could showcase whether Tesla is up to the task of shifting public opinion toward the kind of future envisioned by Musk.
"There's a very long time frame of really, truly monetizing the value of this FSD," Levy told Yahoo Finance on Tuesday.
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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