Flipboard Tesla

Tesla takes big swing with new model in key market

Tony Owusu — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 21:04:58 GMT

Tesla is struggling mightily in India, reportedly selling just 350 Model Y's in India since it debuted last year, according to Reuters. But now the company is debuting a new version of the Model Y to help goose sales in the burgeoning EV market.

Pricing due to heavy tariffs means Tesla still has a lot of work to do to succeed on the subcontinent, but CEO Elon Musk arguably isn't making it easy for his company.

Last year, as Tesla was looking to break into the Indian market, Musk got into a back-and-forth of insults with an Indian-origin billionaire and amplified a controversial post claiming, "If Indians set foot in England and become English. Then the English who set foot in India became Indian. Therefore the English did not rule India..."

I won't waste space explaining the difference between colonization and immigration because none of TheStreet's readers are that obtuse, but safe to say Tesla has struggled mightily so far in India, and only time will tell if an expensive new version of the Y will help change things.

Tesla Model Y L has more range and more seats.

Photo by NurPhoto on Getty Images

Tesla brings new Model Y to boost sales in India

On Wednesday, Tesla launched a new six-seater version of the Model Y that is popular around the globe, just not in India.

The Model Y L has third row seating, between 500 and 681 km of range and a price tag of about Rs 61.99 lakh (6.2 million rupees or $66,000), according to Overdrive Magazine. While the $66,000 price tag for an all-wheel-drive Model Y seems like a bargain compared to the regular Model Y's $64,000 price, the average price of an electric vehicle in India is currently m uch lower. For instance, BYD's Model Y competitor, the BYD Sealion 7, costs the equivalent of about $53,000 to $59,000 USD there.

For perspective, Tesla introduced the Model Y L in China last year at a starting price of about $49,700.

Between mid-July, when it entered the Indian market, and February, Tesla received orders for just over 600 vehicles in the country, according to media reports.

The reason for Tesla's higher prices is the nearly 100% tariff it pays on imported vehicles.

In February, the U.S. and India announced that they had reached a “framework for an interim agreement” on trade that included India eliminating or reducing tariffs with an emphasis on U.S. food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains, red sorghum for animal feed, soybean oil, and other U.S. staple crops.

Officials also said that India would cut tariffs on high-end American cars to 30% from as high as 110%. India will also eliminate tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles under the interim agreement.

However, India did not make any concessions on electric vehicles, despite the government's claim that it wants to boost EVs from the current 5% to 30% of the country’s automotive sector by 2030.

So far, Musk has unsuccessfully lobbied the Indian government for years to lower its tariffs on EVs, but the government has balked, stating that if Tesla wants unfettered access to the market, it needs to build the vehicles in India.

Tesla recently scrapped plans to build a factory there, opting instead to ship vehicles from China.

Stakes for Tesla “could not be higher,” say BNP Paribas analysts

Tesla is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings results on Wednesday, April 22, after the closing bell.

Earlier this year, Tesla shared it was pulling the plug on the Model S and Model X and would replace that production capacity with Optimus humanoid robots as part of the company’s plan to build 1 million of them per year.

That plan may worry investors, since there is currently no discernible market for humanoid robots, and selling 10,000 of them in a year would be impressive. But the vehicle models the company is getting rid of haven’t sold, either, so it may be a wash in the end.

Still, analysts at BNP Paribas aren’t taking this Tesla experiment lightly because the company is also spending a lot of money to make it happen.

According to BNP, the other models that combined delivered 16,000 vehicles in the quarter benefited from demand that was artificially inflated, so once again, moving off of them makes sense.

However, Musk has made some pretty big promises about what Optimus and Robotaxi can do, and the firm says it’s time for Tesla to “put up or shut up” in 2026.

“We view 1Q26’s deliveries — modestly below consensus — as yet another input to the TSLA stock’s challenged setup for this year, with EGS storage deployments also meaningfully light,” BNP analysts said.

“A critical factor to this year is the Co.’s progress rate in its active Robotaxi fleet, which is climbing yet still limited to just two cities. The core catalysts for TSLA center on its ability to show meaningful progress toward its AI-defined future, inclusive of Robotaxi fleet expansion (targeting seven new cities in 1H26) and commercialized production of Optimus by year-end.”

BNP reiterated its underperform rating and $280 price target on Tesla shares.

Tesla makes new robotaxi move in two major U.S. cities.

Faizan Farooque — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:17:00 GMT

Tesla (TSLA) is taking another step to show that its plans for robotaxis are more than just a long-held dream.

The electric car company is expanding itsrobotaxi service to Dallas and Houston. The latest initiative will give it a footing in two additional big Texas cities as it strives to gain traction in the autonomous ride-hailing market. The launch comes after Tesla's earlier deployment in Austin, where the company started testing a modest robotaxi service last year.

There are a few things that make the expansion stand out. It looks like Tesla is getting more sure of the technology underpinning its self-driving platform. The company's eagerness to move quickly is evident, despite the careful scrutiny of authorities, competitors, and investors regarding the safety and business potential of autonomous cars.

Tesla unveiled the move through its official robotaxi account on X, releasing videos that seemed to show Model Y SUVs driving around Dallas and Houston without a driver or front-seat safety monitor. The company also sent out maps showing the service areas in both cities, but it didn't say anything about prices, who may use the service, or how big the fleet is.

That absence of clarity leaves some big questions unresolved. But the main point is clear: Tesla wants investors and customers to consider robotaxis as the next step in its growth.

Tesla is pushing robotaxis deeper into Texas

Tesla’s latest expansion comes at a unique time for the electric car maker.

For years, Musk has been saying that self-driving cars are one of Tesla's biggest long-term bets. As the core electric car industry slows down and pricing competition hurts profitability, the company's story is focusing on the robotaxi concept. Tesla software may power a successful ride-hailing business that will bring in a new stream of recurring revenue and help explain why the firm is worth so much.

That's why the launch in Dallas and Houston is important. Tesla isn't just talking about the future of robotaxis anymore. It's slowly adding real markets, real routes, and real-world experience running them.

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“Try Tesla Robotaxi in Dallas & Houston!” Muskwrote in a repost of the company’s announcement, signaling that the launch is meant to be viewed as another milestone rather than a limited test.

Tesla's initial robotaxi service was in Austin. It had stricter rules, a restricted area of coverage, and more apparent safety features. Since then, the company has expanded that area and reduced human control.

But the problem is that just expanding doesn't answer the question of whether Tesla's technology can safely and profitably grow in big cities. The business still needs to prove to riders, regulators, and investors that its systems can handle complicated traffic situations all the time.

Tesla is expanding robotaxis as pressure builds

Photo by Josh Edelson on Getty Images

Tesla faces tougher robotaxi competition from Waymo and Zoox

Tesla is also growing at a time when the robotaxi race is getting more competitive.

Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo and Amazon’s (AMZN) Zoox have also sped up their work on self-driving cars, which puts greater pressure on Tesla to prove that it can go beyond hype and into a more mature commercial phase. Waymo in particular has spent years building out service in several cities, giving it a stronger track record in the public eye.

The fact that there are so many other companies in Texas makes Tesla's expansion there more important. Musk has made big promises about how quickly robotaxis will catch on, saying that the service should be available in many U.S. major areas by the end of 2025. Each new city launch now serves as a progress report and proof point, given that those goals didn't fully materialize.

Key takeaways from Tesla’s robotaxi expansion

April 18, 2026:Tesla said it is launching robotaxi service in Dallas and Houston.
Earlier rollout:Tesla’s robotaxi service first launched in Austin last year.
Vehicles shown:Tesla posted videos of Model Y SUVs operating without a front-seat human monitor.
Missing details: The company did not disclose pricing, fleet size or broader rider access.
Why it matters:Robotaxis are a key part of Musk’s plan to shift Tesla’s focus toward artificial intelligence and robotics.

For many who are bullish on Tesla, this latest action backs up the concept that the company is slowly but surely establishing an autonomous car segment that might become more important than just selling vehicles. For some who are doubtful, the same rollout might look like just another small step in a plan that still has big safety, legal, and operational problems to solve.

It looks like Tesla is not going to back down from the bet. By picking Dallas and Houston, it is adding two large cities that can help see if its robotaxi model can function in more than one carefully controlled launch zone. That may not answer all of Tesla's self-driving questions, but it shows the market where Musk wants the firm to go next.

Tesla's latest numbers raise new concerns in key market

Mwangi Enos — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:03:00 GMT

Picture a Tesla dealership in California, historically the brand's most loyal and lucrative turf, moving fewer cars than it did a year ago. Then picture that happening across the entire state, all at once, in the middle of what was supposed to be a rebound year.

That's the reality buried inside a report released Tuesday, April 21, by the California New Car Dealers Association (CNCDA). Tesla (TSLA) vehicle registrations in California dropped 24.3% in the first quarter of 2026, the steepest decline of any brand in the state. It's a number that landed just before Tesla reports its first-quarter earnings on April 22.

Indicators suggest the new vehicle market is set to weaken, as persistently high financing costs, near-record vehicle prices, tariffs, EV tax credit phase-outs, and geopolitical risks continue to erode consumer confidence.

The broader California EV market tells an equally uncomfortable story. And for a company that has staked its future on energy, Robotaxis, and humanoid robots, the pressure to hold its ground in the present is growing harder to ignore.

Tesla's California collapse: What the Q1 2026 CNCDA data actually show

The numbers from the CNCDA report are stark. Overall zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales in California, the largest EV market in the United States, slumped 40% in the first quarter of 2026, according to the CNCDA. Total ZEV registrations fell to 57,111, down from 95,520 in the same period a year earlier.

Tesla's decline didn't happen in a vacuum. Several forces converged at once.

The $7,500 federal tax credit for new EVs under the Inflation Reduction Act effectively expired for vehicles acquired after Sept. 30, 2025, adding thousands of dollars back onto the sticker price overnight, according to the IRS.
The $4,000 used EV credit expired alongside it, removing a key entry point for budget-conscious buyers.
California has pulled back on state-level incentives, Investing.com noted, with new 2026 proposals requiring automakers to match state funds, a structure that further complicates the purchase equation.
Near-record vehicle prices and elevated financing costs have compounded the affordability squeeze across the board, Reuters reported.

Despite the decline, Tesla's Model Y and Model 3 remained among the best-selling zero-emission vehicles in California during the quarter, according to CNCDA data. It's a perfect reminder that even a wounded market leader is still a market leader.

Tesla registrations in California fell below 180,000 vehicles in 2025, down from nearly 203,000 in 2024.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

How Tesla lost its grip on California long before Q1 2026

The first-quarter drop didn't emerge out of nowhere. The erosion has been building for over a year. According to Experian data published by the CNCDA, Tesla accounted for 9.9% of all vehicles registered in California in 2025, down from 11.6% in 2024.

That decline was more than three times the drop recorded by Stellantis's (STLA) Dodge brand, enough to push Tesla from second place to third among all auto brands in the state, trailing Toyota (TM).

According to AA stocks.com, Tesla registrations in California fell below 180,000 vehicles in 2025, down from nearly 203,000 in 2024. That contraction was large enough to drag the state's entire ZEV market into retreat, with total zero-emission registrations declining by roughly 7,300 vehicles to just over 378,000, CNCDA and Experian data reveal.

An aging vehicle lineup has compounded the problem. While competitors have refreshed and expanded their EV offerings, Tesla's core consumer products, the Model 3 and Model Y, have carried the weight of the portfolio for years.

In a market that has historically rewarded novelty, familiarity has a shelf life.

Tesla's competition is no longer theoretical as GM, BYD close in

For years, "Tesla competition" was more of a talking point than a reality. That's no longer the case.

General Motors (GM) solidified its position as the second-largest EV seller in the United States by late 2025. The Chevrolet Equinox EV became the third best-selling EV in the country, trailing only Tesla's Model Y and Model 3, while Cadillac's Lyriq emerged as the top non-Tesla luxury EV, according to industry data.

Globally, BYD edged past Tesla in total annual deliveries by the end of 2025, claiming the title of world's largest EV seller by volume, BBC reported. BYD's focus on affordability is putting sustained pressure on Western rivals across Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

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Ford (F), meanwhile, is pivoting toward hybrids and extended-range electric vehicles to meet consumer demand for range and value, signaling that even legacy automakers are rethinking the pure-EV playbook that Tesla pioneered.

Tesla still held a 54.2% U.S. EV market share in Q1 2026, according to industry data cited by Inside EVs, outselling all other brands combined. But the trajectory is unmistakable.

What Tesla's Q1 2026 earnings report needs to answer

Tesla reports first-quarter 2026 results on April 22, and the California data sets a challenging backdrop.

Analysts project approximately $22 billion in revenue for the quarter. Q1 deliveries came in at 358,023 vehicles, up year over year, but below consensus estimates, according to analyst forecasts.

Automotive gross margins remain heavily scrutinized, with concerns that continued price pressure and incentive spending are compressing profitability at the core business level.

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The earnings call matters beyond the numbers. Investors will be listening for updates on three fronts that could reframe the Tesla story: progress on the Robotaxi rollout, advancement of its humanoid robot program, and any signal on capital expenditure plans for the year ahead.

Lower car sales and falling revenue from regulatory credits mean Tesla must increasingly lean on its energy division to generate the high-margin revenue needed to fund those bets. In the first quarter of 2025, Tesla's energy generation and storage segment posted record revenue, a data point the company will need to build on as automotive margins face continued pressure.

California was supposed to be the floor. If Q1 2026 is any indication, even the floor needs reinforcement.

Tesla Full Self-Driving faces its biggest challenge yet

Tony Owusu — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:07:00 GMT

On X (the former Twitter) these days, much of the conversation around Tesla Full-Self Driving (Supervised) is positive.

In between retweeting race-baiting posts from white supremacist accounts, CEO Elon Musk, who also owns the social media platform, sometimes reposts videos of customers happy with Tesla FSD, and much (though not all)of the conversation around FSD lauds the technology.

But on other social media platforms, a growing number of discontented Tesla owners express frustration over a range of issues. Some drivers have organized to file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of 3,000 people in California who are being left out of the company's latest FSD upgrade.

Tom LoSavio, the lead plaintiff in the case, purchased his Model S in 2017 for $100,000 and paid another $8,000 for lifetime access to FSD, according to The Wall Street Journal.

However, in the nine years since, he has grown disenchanted with Tesla, alleging that Musk and the company made repeated false claims about the tech's capabilities while charging thousands of dollars for pricey upgrades that didn't exist then, and still don't.

At the heart of the lawsuit is Musk and Tesla's repeated promise that most Teslas on the road today will one day be capable of autonomy. But the company's latest move with its Hardware 4 chip is leaving old-school Tesla owners out in the cold.

Tesla lawsuit rests on 2016 Elon Musk promise

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made plenty of promises that haven't come to fruition and has blown past countless deadlines that he set himself, but one promise from 2016 is at the heart of a class action lawsuit that now has 3,000 plaintiffs.

Tesla began including early versions of its self-driving tech in Teslas in 2014. Then, in 2015, Musk promised that Teslas would be able to drive themselves within two years.

In 2016, according to the lawsuit, Tesla said that all new cars built from then on would have the hardware required for full self-driving capabilities, with Musk claiming that by the end of 2017, a Tesla could drive itself from Los Angeles to New York City.

Last year, TheStreet covered two Tesla enthusiasts who documented their failed attempt to do just that. They didn't even make it out of California, although plenty of Tesla owners claim they have made the trip successfully.

Tesla has broken that promise multiple times since 2017, as the more sophisticated FSD technology required hardware updates to the company's computers and cameras, which it began offering in 2020 and 2021.

Some customers, like Tom LoSavio, who paid the $8,000 fee for lifetime access, were upgraded for free, while others who paid the monthly subscription price paid $1,000 for the 2020/2021 upgrade.

But then Tesla upgraded the hardware again in 2023, for a fourth time, and started selling new cars with its latest chip, meaning those who had been either upgraded for free or paid to upgrade just a couple of years prior were once again running on outdated equipment.

Similar lawsuits are popping up internationally.

Tesla FSD was approved for use in the Netherlands earlier this month, but only the version running on the latest hardware. So Tesla owners who purchased their vehicles before 2023 are out of luck.

“Why did I buy it? Because I believed they would make it happen,” one Dutch Tesla owner who paid €68,000 in 2019 for a Model 3 Performance, and an additional €6,400 for the upgraded Full Self-Driving capability, told the Journal. “I just didn’t think it would take them seven years, and still they wouldn’t deliver.”

He's organizing European Tesla owners into another lawsuit, and a similar class action suit is making its way through the Australian federal court, accusing the company of selling vehicles "incapable of supporting fully autonomous or close to autonomous driving," based on the hardware that was purchased years ago.

During Tesla's earnings call in January 2025, Musk told investors that the company would have to upgrade the computer for customers who bought the lifetime FSD package.

"That is the honest answer and that’s going to be painful and difficult. But we’ll get it done,” Musk said at the time, according to the Journal. “Now, I’m kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package.”

A Tesla promise from 2016 is at the heart of a class action lawsuit that now has 3,000 plaintiffs.

Leong/Washington Post via Getty Images

Elon Musk’s promises keep investors intrigued

Following a second consecutive year of falling deliveries and its first year of declining revenue in 2025, Tesla has lost a bit of its luster.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank expect the bad times to stretch into 2026, but the firm remains bullish on the company, given its future ambitions.

“To the extent that the macro regime doesn’t change materially, we think investors will continue to look beyond weakness in the autos business.”

But the problem with Musk’s promises, as the lawsuits point out, is that he rarely delivers on them.

“I think we will probably have autonomous ride-hailing in probably half the population of the U.S. by the end of the year,” Musk said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July 2025.

Tesla has about 500 active Tesla Robotaxis operating in pilot programs as of March 2026.

During the company’s third-quarter call, Musk dangled Tesla’s Optimus robot like shiny keys in front of investors, saying Tesla is “on the cusp of something really tremendous” with Optimus, and calling it the “biggest product of all time.”

Musk even made a near-term promise. Tesla will be unveiling Optimus V3 “probably in Q1,” he said. “It won’t even seem like a robot. It’ll seem like a person in a robot suit,” Musk assured investors on the call.

Tesla's first-quarter earnings call is scheduled for Wednesday, April 22, after the closing bell. There is still no sign of Optimus V3, though the company shared news recently about two patents it filed in 2024 that supposedly give the robot "human-like dexterity."

Bearish Tesla analyst has good news for Rivian stock investors

Tony Owusu — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:17:00 GMT

Analysts at BNP Paribas have been pretty steady on Tesla, making the Wall Street firm one of the few with a bearish outlook on the stock.

BNP Paribas has an underperform rating and a $280 price target on the stock (compared to the consensus hold rating and $397.26 price target, according to MarketBeat), based on skepticism about the company's Robotaxi and Optimus-focused plans for 2026.

BNPP analysts are very skeptical of the progress, or lack thereof, that Tesla is showing in Robotaxi and humanoid robots. According to the firm, Tesla's Robotaxi growth in Austin and San Francisco has "stagnated," and it seems skeptical of the company's expansion into Dallas and Houston, referring to its "launches" with quotation marks.

Analysts said Tesla will also "require a steep ramp" to reach the 7-city expansion by the end of the year, which CEO Elon Musk promised investors during the company's previous earnings call.

"We also don't see much progress in Optimus commercialization," analysts said, referring to Musk's other promise of expanding the company's capacity to build 1 million Optimus humanoid robots per year.

“Given Tesla’s sizable cash burn this year ($7 billion estimate by BNPP) and indications for massive multi-year investments on the horizon tied to a TeraFab and 100 GW solar capacity, the ‘stakes’ of TSLA’s demonstrated Robotaxi and Optimus progress could not be higher,” analysts said in a recent note.

Meanwhile, analysts at the firm are bullish on domestic Tesla EV rival Rivian, despite the fact that the company lags far behind Tesla. BNPP's goals for Rivian by the end of the year are milestones Tesla has already mastered.

BNP Paribas sees big upside for Rivian stock

Elon Musk has promised investors that Tesla will more than triple its Robotaxi coverage and usher in the humanoid robot revolution by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Rivian's goals this year seem much more attainable, so analysts at BNP Paribas are more bullish on the struggling startup EV maker.

Rivian has a $23 price target on its shares, 26% above the stock's closing price of $16.92 on Monday, April 20.

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The firm says that while it expects better deliveries, "Rivian's 2026 will be defined by... the Co.'s ability to offer FSD-like 'point-to-point' hands-free driving by year end."

In the meantime, it says the recent $1.25 billion expanded Robotaxi partnership with Uber is enough to push the firm's expectations for Rivian's stock to $4 per share.

During its Autonomy & AI Day in December, Rivian introduced the Gen 3 Autonomy Computer, its third-generation compute platform, which it says will have the “leading combination of vehicle sensors and inference available in North America.”

The Gen 3 Autonomy Computer can process 5 billion pixels per second, thanks to the Rivian Autonomy Processor, its proprietary silicon chip that Rivian claims is among the first multi-chip modules used in high-compute automotive applications.

All Rivian vehicle deliveries now come with a 60-day trial of Autonomy+, its hands-free platform.

Analysts at BNP Paribas are bullish on domestic Tesla EV rival Rivian.

Photo by 400tmax on Getty Images

TD Cowen, Barclays turn more bearish on Tesla ahead of earnings

Tesla shares had a rough session on April 20, dropping more than 2%, but the stock is still up nearly 10% over the past five sessions as it heats up heading into earnings on Wednesday, April 22.

The stock is still down 10.4% year to date, but it has seen a definite uptick in recent days.

Barclays analysts maintained an equal-weight rating and $360 price target on the electric vehicle maker, while TD Cowen analysts were bullish on the stock in separate recent notes.

“Barclays believes Terafab could cost in the mid-single-digit trillion-dollar range if fully built out. While Tesla’s capex is unlikely to ‘exponentially increase,’ a further step up from the elevated $20B figure Tesla talked to on the last earnings call is likely,” Barclays contends.

Barclays analysts pin the recent stock sell-off on a lack of guidance about the company’s Robotaxi and Optimus progress. Tesla said earlier this year it was mothballing its Model S and Model X brands to focus on robotics and AI.

According to the firm, the sell-off “could imply on the surface an opportunity for the stock to outperform” after the Q1 results are released. Barclays, however, says it takes a “more tempered view into the print,” as any suggestions of incremental capex spending “could be perceived negatively.”

Meanwhile, analysts at TD Cowen remained bullish on the company, maintaining its buy rating, while lowering its price target to $490 from $519.

The firm agrees that the lack of news about progress on Robotaxi and Optimus has “dampened sentiment” heading into the Q1 print. It also sees Tesla as better positioned than suppliers to offer investors “reassurances" and retain "guidance credibility.”

TD Cowen believes Tesla has a low risk of guiding down in the earnings call and sees a slightly positive setup for the stock heading into the earnings release on Wednesday, April 22.

Ford CEO Jim Farley takes unexpected turn on EVs

Tony Owusu — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:03:00 GMT

Electric vehicles have been on the minds of Ford's best thinkers for years, and on a recent podcast, CEO Jim Farley detailed the thought process behind some of the moves the company has made in recent quarters to right a nearly $20 billion wrong.

Earlier this year, when Farley was asked why, after billions upon billions of losses, he was confident that Ford could turn around its fortunes and make the Model e profitable by 2029, he said he drew inspiration from Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD.

World’s top EV markets in 2024

China: 6.4 million EVs sold
Europe: 2.2 million EVs sold
U.S.: 1.2 million EVs sold
Rest of world: 1 million EVs sold
Source: International Energy Agency

In an interview with the "Rapid Response" podcast, released Friday, Farley told Bob Safian why he chose to model his strategy after a Chinese rival, rather than the most popular EV maker in the world, Tesla. Farley was blunt.

"Nothing against Tesla, they've been doing great, but they really don't have an updated vehicle," Farley said.

Farley isn't blind; he acknowledges that every Chinese EV gets about $5,000 in subsidies from the Chinese government, but he also notes that "their factories would be half full if they just made cars for their market," but they export so many vehicles abroad that there is no excess capacity.

According to Farley, the turmoil in Iraq and the Gulf States only reinforces the company's decision to retool its electric vehicle division and model it after what the Chinese are doing.

Photo by Althom on Getty Images

Ford CEO Jim Farley explains why he looks to BYD, not Tesla, for EV inspiration

Ford CEO Jim Farley went on to repeat some of the points he has made recently about Chinese vehicles in America being a potential national security threat due to the large amount of cameras, driver data, and environmental data their electric vehicles utilize.

So the question became, why then does he look to Chinese companies for inspiration, rather than Tesla, an American company that operates in an environment more similar to Ford's?

"The best in business for us cost-wise and competition-wise, and supply chain, and manufacturing expertise, and the IP in the vehicle is really BYD. And BYD became the highest volume brand in China," Farley said.

As for the lesson he is learning from BYD, "If we're smart, we'll take the cost competitiveness of BYD, and then we'll compete with that platform in the markets where we know our customers really well. And this next cycle of EV customers in the U.S. that want pickups and utilities and all these different body styles... but they want it at $30,000 not $50,000."

"That is the gift China gave us, to be fearful and respectful enough of their progress that we could not organically just phone it in. We needed to do what Americans do greatest, sometimes, which is use innovation to compete against the best in the world," Farley said.

Farley says he pays more attention to the used car market trends than he does to new cars, because the used car market is twice the size of that for new cars, and since all used cars sell at a reduced price, "they're a better predictor of consumer behavior because prices are all lower."

Ford is taking what it's learning from that market to make the next generation of electric vehicles.

According to Ford, an EV’s battery can account for up to 40% of the vehicle’s total expense, so the company reimagined EV battery tech to make them smaller and more cost-efficient.

“The really high-end EVs, the $50k, $60k, $70k EVs just weren’t selling,” CEO Jim Farley said in an interview Dec. 15.

Ford debuts plan to make $30,000 EV

EVs cost about $11,000 more on average than their traditional gas counterparts, according to a 2023 report. That, coupled with the expiration of the up to $7,500 tax credit that had been propping up the industry for a decade, means that EVs are as unaffordable in America as they’ve ever been.

Ford has been teasing progress on its Universal Electric Vehicle project, which aims to build an EV priced for most Americans for months.

Ford says it aims to produce a $30,000 EV in the near future. To get there, it needs to tackle the biggest cost driver for electric vehicles: their batteries.

Customers expect at least 300 miles of range, according to Ford, and to achieve that, batteries have been made bigger and heavier. But Ford says it is taking a different approach.

It gave its engineers incentives to increase battery efficiency by any means necessary. The team identified aerodynamics and vehicle weight as the two main areas where batteries were operating inefficiently.

The way EVs are currently designed increases wind drag, making the battery work harder and less efficiently. Ditto for weight, as heavier vehicles need more juice to operate.

At higher speeds, air drag becomes more important. For example, if you go twice as fast, the air holds you back four times as much, and you need eight times as much power from the battery, according to Ford.

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So Ford devised a “bounty” program in which its engineers assigned numerical values to efficiency gains. Teams competed against each other for the largest efficiency gains that reduced battery size and cost.

A millimeter change in the height of the roof could equate to $1.30 in battery savings costs while also making its pickup truck the industry leader in efficiency, as shown by Ford.

Farley told Safian that Ford expects to allow the public to see some vehicles from the platform later this year.

Wall Street firm drops shocking verdict ahead of Tesla earnings

Faizan Farooque — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 14:07:00 GMT

Tesla (TSLA) investors finally caught a break after a long time, thanks to one of the biggest Wall Streetfirms in the world.

UBSis making a brave call, moving Tesla's stock rating from Sell to Hold just as the markets prepare for the upcoming earnings report. Market observers want to know whether the worst is behind Tesla or if more pain is to come in the coming year.

The moment also comes at a unique time for electric vehicles and the global oil supply chain.

The Middle East is currently experiencing significant turmoil. Iran and the United States are actively fighting it out for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. The small patch of land is becoming critical for the global oil supply chain and is becoming a major flashpoint in the war.

The implications are major with U.S. gas prices topping $4 a gallon, making this one of the most unpopular conflicts in modern history. With world leaders conveging in Pakistan to put an end to the conflict, something larger is also happening in the backdrop. For now, it seems that the worst could be over since the Strait of Hormuzis now open. But you never know what is going to happen next.

The urge to pick up an electric vehicle is also, quietly, going up.

Surging fuel costs in 2026, driven by global instability, are forcing US consumers to take the plunge once again, with data showing a 12% jump in used-EV sales thanks to the crisis.

It makes for a unique tailwind for Tesla.

The EV giant is already contending with slow inventory turnover, costs are going up, and investors don't know what to do next.

“Levels more evenly balance near-term demand challenges,” UBS analyst Joseph Spak said, pointing to softer EV sales and heavier spending.

What that simply means is that TSLA's stock price is already reflecting the bad news.

Now what investors are looking at is whether the latest crisis will provide an unexpected boost for TSLA stock.

UBS sees Tesla valuation as more balanced

Tesla’s recent struggles haven’t disappeared; UBS just thinks investors are now fully aware of them.

The EV giant is already facing plenty of headwinds. The issues include lower demand for vehicles and more capital costs related to robotaxis and humanoid robots. These investments are crucial to Tesla's long-term plan, but they are also hurting profits in the short term and pressuring margins.

More Tesla:

The markets are having a tough time ignoring these risks.

Tesla's stock has been falling for eight weeks in a row, and since the company reported its fourth-quarter profits in late January, it has lost 18% of its value. During that period, expectations have changed a lot. Analysts have lowered their predictions while taking into account more expenditure.

UBS is not blinking, though.

Instead, Spak’s updated view reflects the stock’s current level, since it more evenly balances Tesla’s near-term challenges. That includes risks such as increasing costs, softer demand and high capex for robotaxis and humanoid robots.

That last part is a major point of tension for Tesla fans and investors.

Tesla’s car business is in trouble for a while. To counter the situation, the EV giant, for a while now, is pouring money into future-facing bets that may take years to pay off. For bulls, that is why they love Tesla. For bears, that is why one needs to stay away.

Spak is sitting in the middle of this argument.

He is not telling investors to buy the stock. But he also no longer sees enough downside to keep a Sell rating for Tesla.

The bigger long-term thesis is based on artificial intelligence applications, especially robotaxis and robotics. That is a big reason why UBS still thinks Tesla is worth about $1.6 trillion on a fully diluted basis.

In other words, this isn't really a call on Tesla's current car sales; it's more of a reminder that Wall Street still thinks the company's future may depend more on software, autonomy, and AI than on unit deliveries alone.

Wall Street as a whole is still being careful. About 45% of analysts say Tesla is a good buy, which is lower than the average for S&P 500stocks.

Tesla’s outlook is changing as energy markets tighten

Photo by Bloomberg on Getty Images

Tesla earnings could reset expectations for investors

Tesla’s next earnings report is one of the most important for the electric vehicle giant in recent memory.

People are no longer just judging the firm as an electric car maker. Instead, it is at the crossroads of two very different stories: one about an auto sector that is mature and having genuine demand problems, and the other about AI, which is still growing quickly but hasn't completely materialized yet.

That two-sided identity makes it hard to figure out how much it's worth.

On the one hand, lower margins and more expenses are real worries about how well things will go in the near future. On the other hand, the possibility of robotaxis and AI-driven services keeps long-term optimistic arguments going.

UBS's upgrade doesn't settle the argument; it just recognizes it.

Key Tesla takeaways ahead of earnings

Stock down 22% year to date despite long-term gains
UBS upgrades to Hold, citing balanced risk/reward
EV demand remains a near-term concern
AI and robotaxis remain core to long-term valuation
Earnings on Apr. 22 expected to show modest growth

For investors, the takeaway is simple.

Tesla is no longer a single-story stock; it has multiple opportunities for growth. The company is going through a lot of changes, and until the auto business settles down or the AI vision becomes real, things are likely to stay shaky.

However, there is hope for the future. Apart from the initiatives that Tesla is taking, the Middle East crisis clearly underlines why American consumers need to pivot to electric vehicles sooner rather than later.

That might be all the edge that Tesla needs for now.

Tesla analysts get nervous heading into Q1 print

Tony Owusu — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 22:03:00 GMT

You wouldn't know it from CEO Elon Musk's racism-baiting posts on X (the former Twitter), but Tesla analysts at TD Cowen and Barclays have some serious concerns heading into the company's first-quarter earnings print.

Musk has been on the defensive since the company reported its preliminary Q1 results earlier this month, so he has resorted to cherry-picking facts about how Tesla, by itself, outperforms all other EV makers in the U.S.

This is true, of course, but what he's leaving out is that Tesla also reported global first-quarter production of 408,386 vehicles and deliveries of 358,023, well short of analyst expectations of 370,000 and its internal consensus estimate of 365,000.

It wasn’t all bad news: Deliveries actually improved 6% year over year, but the increase is somewhat skewed, since 2025’s Q1 total was 13% lower than 2024’s. So the company’s comps were favorable.

Tesla saw its revenue fall year over year for the first time ever in 2025. Last year was also the second consecutive year when deliveries fell. While the stock is doing relatively well given those headwinds, shares are still down more than 11% year to date (though they have been on a heater recently, rising nearly 14% over the past 5 sessions).

So when analysts at BNP Paribas said earlier this month that the stakes couldn't be higher for the company in 2026, it seemed like an astute call.

"Given Tesla’s sizable cash burn this year ($7 billion estimate by BNPP) and indications for massive multi-year investments on the horizon tied to a TeraFab and 100 GW solar capacity, the ‘stakes’ of TSLA’s demonstrated robotaxi and Optimus progress could not be higher,” BNP analysts said in a note earlier this month.

But BNP isn't the only firm sounding the alarm.

TD Cowen, Barclays turn more bearish on Tesla ahead of earnings

Tesla shares remained on a heater on Wednesday, April 15, climbing nearly 7.4% at last check in the early afternoon, despite two bearish analyst notes from TD Cowen and Barclays.

Barclays analysts maintained an equal-weight rating and $360 price target on the electric vehicle maker, representing a slight downside from the stock's $366.83 opening price.

"Barclays believes Terafab could cost in the mid-single digit trillion dollar range if fully built out. While Tesla's capex is unlikely to 'exponentially increase', a further step up from the elevated $20B figure Tesla talked to on the last earnings call is likely," contends Barclays, thefly.com reported.

Barclays analysts pin the recent stock selloff on a lack of guidance about the company's Robotaxi and Optimus progress. Tesla said earlier this year it was mothballing its Model S and Model X brands to focus on robotics and AI.

According to the firm, while the sell-off "could imply on the surface an opportunity for the stock to outperform" after the Q1 results are released. Barclays says it takes a "more tempered view into the print" as any suggestions of incremental capex spending "could be perceived negatively."

Meanwhile, analysts at TD Cowen remained bullish on the company, maintaining its buy rating, while lowering its price target to $490 from $519.

The firm agrees that the lack of news about progress on Robotaxi and Optimus has "dampened sentiment" heading into the Q1 print, it also sees Tesla as better positioned than suppliers to offer investors outlook "reassurances and retaining guidance credibility."

TD Cowen believes Tesla has a low risk of guiding down in the earnings call and sees a slightly positive setup for the stock heading into the earnings release on Wednesday, April 22.

Tesla saw its revenue fall year over year for the first time ever in 2025.

Marquardt/Pool/Getty Images

Stakes for Tesla "could not be higher," say BNP Paribas analysts

Still, analysts at BNP Paribas aren’t taking this Tesla experiment lightly because the company is also spending a lot of money to make it happen.

According to BNP, the other models that combined delivered 16,000 vehicles in the quarter benefited from demand that was artificially inflated, so once again, moving off of them makes sense.

However, Musk has made some pretty big promises about what Optimus and Robotaxi can do, and the firm says it’s time for Tesla to "put up or shut up" in 2026.

If their analysis seems a bit dim, the firm is one of the few on Wall Street with a negative view of the stock.

BNP reiterated its underperform rating and $280 price target on Tesla shares, representing a potential 28% downside from the stock’s current level.

UBS resets Tesla stock price for the rest of 2026

Hillary Remy — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 17:23:00 GMT

Tesla has dropped more than 21% in 2026. UBS had been one of the bears. On April 14, that changed.

UBS upgraded Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) from Sell to Neutral and raised its price target to $352, citing a more favorable risk-reward profile following the stock's sharp decline. The move sent Tesla up approximately 2% in premarket trading.

The upgrade came from UBS analyst Joseph Spak, who said the current price level now more evenly balances near-term headwinds against Tesla's longer-term opportunity in what the bank calls "physical AI," according to CoinCentral.

Why UBS changed its view on Tesla

The core of UBS's argument is that the stock had fallen far enough to price in most of the bad news. UBS said its view is now balanced between near-term demand challenges, an elevated investment period, and a lofty valuation on one side, and a large long-term physical AI opportunity on the other.

More Tesla:

Using a 150 times price-to-earnings ratio, UBS calculates the stock is currently pricing in $2.33 of 2027 earnings per share. That compares to UBS's own estimate of $2.35 and consensus of $2.47, suggesting the stock is no longer dramatically stretched relative to what the bank expects, according to Investing.com.

Tesla's current P/E ratio sits at approximately 325 times earnings. Insiders have sold $20.9 million worth of shares over the past three months, according to GuruFocus.

The near-term headwinds UBS is not dismissing

The upgrade is not a clean bullish call. Spak was explicit about the pressures still facing Tesla. Near-term headwinds include weaker EV demand, a Q1 2026 energy shortfall, rising costs, higher capital spending requirements, and slow progress on both its robo-taxi network and the Optimus humanoid robot.

Spak warned the stock "may continue to exhibit high volatility" and said it trades more on sentiment and narrative than on underlying financials, according to CoinCentral. That is not the language of a ringing endorsement. It is the language of a bank that thinks the risk of holding a Sell rating has become greater than the risk of moving to Neutral.

UBS sees risks in Tesla stock.

Kemp/Getty Images

What UBS says about Tesla's AI and robotaxi potential

The longer-term case rests on two projects: the robo-taxi network and the Optimus robot. UBS still sees potential for Tesla to offer low cost-per-mile transportation and become a major player in the U.S. robotaxi market, according to CoinCentral.

But Spak's expectations are measured. Tesla had indicated its robo-taxi service would be operating across nine cities by the first half of 2026.

Spak flagged concern over the slow pace of the Austin rollout and does not expect meaningful scaling in the near term, according to CoinCentral.

On Optimus, Spak said the program "will take longer than Musk's stated targets" and flagged supply chain risk given the current reliance on Chinese-made parts.

UBS models approximately 5,000 Optimus units in 2027, rising to 30,000 by 2030, according to CoinCentral. That is well below the volumes Musk has publicly discussed.

Key figures from the UBS Tesla upgrade:

New rating: Neutral, upgraded from Sell
New price target: $352
Tesla year-to-date decline: more than 21%
Premarket reaction: up approximately 2%
UBS 2027 EPS estimate: $2.35 vs consensus $2.47
Current P/E: approximately 325x
UBS Optimus forecast: 5,000 units in 2027, 30,000 by 2030

Where other analysts stand on Tesla

UBS's new $352 target lands in the middle of a wide range of Wall Street views. Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas maintains a $410 target. Wedbush sits at $600 on the bull end. Wells Fargo holds a $125 target at the bear end, according to TECHi.

That range, from $125 to $600, reflects how differently analysts value the company depending on whether they believe Tesla's AI and robotaxi story will materialize on the timelines the company has suggested. UBS's move to Neutral does not resolve that debate. It simply says the stock has come down enough that the downside from a Sell rating no longer looks justified.

For investors, the upgrade is a signal that the pendulum has shifted slightly. But Spak's own caveats make clear this is not an inflection point. It is a recalibration from a bank that thinks the risk-reward has improved, not that the problems have gone away.

RBC analyst slashes 3 key auto price targets

Tony Owusu — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:37:00 GMT

This week, analysts at RBC Capital told investors what they already know: The electric vehicle market is not in great shape. So the firm lowered its price targets on Tesla, Ford, and Lucid, though it also maintained its outperform rating on Tesla.

It's quite the turnaround for the EV market that had a record first three quarters of 2025 as buyers flocked to dealerships to make purchases before the government tax credit expired at the end of September.

Ford Model e losses by year

2025: $4.8 billion
2024: $5.1 billion
2023: $4.7 billion
2022: $2.2 billion

The Detroit Big 3 alone collectively have lost $50 billion on their EV divisions in 2025, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Ford’s EV division, Model e, had its best month of sales ever as buyers flocked to dealerships to take advantage of the $7,500 EV tax credit, which expired in September.

However, despite those sales, Ford lost $1.4 billion on its EV division in the third quarter due to spending on new products and increased competition, according to Ford.

Through three quarters, the company said it lost $3.6 billion on EVs, with about $3 billion of the loss attributed to its first-generation EV products, including the Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, Puma, Explorer, and Capri. The rest was from investments in its next-generation vehicles.

However, even after Ford revealed a $19.5 billion charge for its EV division, CEO Jim Farley never said he would abandon the tech. In fact, he doubled down, saying the company was more focused than ever on turning it around, and even sharing that Ford had a plan to make its EVs profitable by 2029.

The company's insistence on making its EV division work may be one reason RBC Capital's Tom Narayan lowered his price target.

Tesla is still the favorite, despite cut at RBC Capital

Narayan lowered the price targets for Tesla, Ford, and Lucid in his latest note, while keeping an outperform rating on Tesla and sector perform ratings on Ford and Lucid, according to EV.

Narayan lowered Tesla's price target by 4% to $480 per share from $500. Despite the trim, Tesla is still the most bullish in RBC's auto coverage, as the firm remains optimistic on the company's core automotive business at 1x sales while also applying premiums to its energy storage, Robotaxi, and humanoid robotics businesses.

The firm expects Tesla revenue to rise in 2026 to $111 billion from $93.5 billion in 2025. In 2025, Tesla reported its first annual decline in overall revenue, led by a 11% drop in automotive revenue.

Tesla shares closed the Monday, April 13, session up nearly 1% to $352.42, but the stock is down nearly 20% year to date.

Ford lost $1.4 billion on its EV division in the third quarter.

Photo by jetcityimage on Getty Images

Ford's pivot away from EVs will cost money

RBC lowered Ford's price target by 8.3% to $11 from $12 while maintaining its sector perform rating.

EV reported that Narayan praised Ford's decision to move away from fully electric vehicles as "a rational response to the slowing EV market," but Ford still plans to spend heavily on EVs as it looks to break through with vehicles that start at $30,000 rather than $50,000.

More EV news

“We think to make that business profitable, we have to get to a BYD cost,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told Bloomberg earlier this year. “And so this skunkworks project called the Universe Electric Vehicle that we’re making in Kentucky, that is designed to match the BYD cost in Mexico.”

Farley reiterated what the company said in its December announcement: It would take a $19.5 billion charge on its EV business, with the majority of that charge attributed to the fourth quarter.

But Ford expects $5.5 billion of that charge to be cash effects, with the majority paid this year and the remainder in 2027.

Ford shares closed the Monday, April 13, session up 0.25% to $12.16.

Lucid price target slashed once again at RBC Capital

For the third time since January, RBC Capital is lowering its price target on EV maker Lucid.

This time, the firm shaved 20% off its expected price target to $8 per share from $10 per share. In January, the firm had a $20 per share price target. Lucid shares closed the Monday, April 13, session up 7.67% to $9.24 per share.

That was a nice rebound from the all-time low of $8.58 per share the stock reached on Friday.

Rivian previously shared that it was lowering its 2026 production guidance, while also admitting it had to revise its full-year 2025 output down to 17,840 units. RBC capital is concerned about stiff "competition and limited software revenues near-term."

The firm is also concerned about Lucid's liquidity, as the carmaker needs near-term financing, despite its continued backing from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

Tesla inches one step closer to major European breakthrough

Tony Owusu — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:17:00 GMT

After a social media pressure campaign and over a million kilometers of safe driving on European roads, Tesla FSD (Supervised) finally has its foot in the door in the EU, with the Netherlands approving its use on highways and city streets.

The approval paves the way for Tesla's ultimate goal of having the technology become legal across Europe, as the company needed at least one European Union member state to approve it before it could be tested and approved by the entire bloc.

Last year, Tesla gave its social media followers a call to action, encouraging them to inundate the Dutch transit authority, Rijksdienst voor het Wegverkeer (RDW), with messages to approve Full Self-Driving testing.

The electric vehicle maker explained that it has been trying to ship supervised Full Self-Driving tech to Europe for 12 months, and the best path forward for the company is through the Netherlands.

“Our main path to success is partnering with the Dutch approval authority RDW to gain an exemption for the feature,” Tesla said in a post on X (the former Twitter).

Current EU regulations, which Tesla referred to as “outdated,” render FSD illegal in its current form. Changing the system to comply with European rules would render FSD “unsafe and unusable in many cases,” according to the company.

Tesla’s call to action on X garnered 3.7 million views, 10,000 likes, 2,300 retweets, and nearly 800 comments in just two days.

The tactic worked: RDW was flooded with comments, forcing the agency to ask the X users to chill out.

“We thank everyone who has already done so, and would like to ask everyone not to contact us about this. It takes up unnecessary time for our customer service. Moreover, this will have no influence on whether or not the planning is met,” RDW said in a statement Nov. 24.

The agency said it would make a decision by February. However, after a short delay, it has approved Tesla FSD for use in the Netherlands.

Tesla receives Dutch approval for FSD technology

Tesla FSD (Supervised) has been approved for use by Dutch regulators after 18 months of testing and more than 1.6 million kilometers driven on EU roads.

But the European version of FSD is not the same software U.S. drivers use. The RDW's statement confirming its approval states that the software versions and functionalities in the U.S. and Europe "are therefore not comparable one-to-one."

Some of those differences include stricter hands-on steering-wheel requirements in Europe, more limited driving mode profiles, and stricter eye-tracking requirements, among others, according to Teslerati.

Tesla is the most popular electric vehicle maker in the Netherlands, with about 100,000 Model 3s and Model Ys combined that would be eligible for FSD software, Reuters noted.

However, hopefully for Tesla, the Netherlands is just the first European domino to drop, as the RDW says it will now submit an application for authentication within the entire EU to the European Commission.

Tesla's best path to shipping supervised Full Self-Driving tech to Europe is gaining approval through the Netherlands.

Photo by Alexander Shapovalov on Getty Images

Tesla’s best route to EU FSD approval goes through the Netherlands

European Union parliamentary rules can be complex for a manufacturer seeking to introduce a new technology in Europe for which no existing legislation currently exists.

But to receive an exemption for the market authorization, a member country must submit an application to the European Commission on behalf of the manufacturer.

The RDW of the Netherlands says it has done just that for Tesla and Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

If the European Commission approves the technology by majority vote, then the exemption is valid in all EU member states.

If there is no majority vote, the exemption would remain valid only in the Netherlands, and other member states could decide for themselves whether to adopt the tech in their countries.

Walmart quietly tackling Tesla and EV owners' biggest problem

Daniel Kline — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:22:15 GMT

As the driver of an electric vehicle, one clear thing dampens my enjoyment of my BMW i3. It's not the lack of loud engine noises, or the fact that my car essentially operates in silence. It's always feeling insecure about finding a place to charge.

Florida, where I live, has charging stations owned by Florida Power & Light, the dominant electricity provider in the state. The stations are common in some areas (especially along the Florida Turnpike) but harder to find in many places.

They're also hit-or-miss when it comes to actually being operational. Earlier this week, for example, at a state-owned rest stop, I plugged in to charge, then went inside to get a coffee.

When I returned, the charger had malfunctioned and my battery only gained a few miles.

This isn't a problem unique to me or the place where I live.

The real problem? Lack of convenient public charging. Nearly 40,000 public chargers were added in 2024, but EV advocate Tom Moloughney, host of the YouTube Show "State of Charge," admits that "there's not enough."

"It’s also very regional — the coasts seem to have more charging infrastructure installed than the Midwest. There are regions of the country that are terribly underserved," he said.

Reliability is also a problem.

Jonny Lieberman from the YouTube show "Driving with Jonny" said his local charging station in Southern California has "three cars charging 24 hours a day, with a line of three to 10 cars waiting."

That's an experience I have shared on the opposite coast.

Starbucks has made some efforts to add EV charging stations, but the size of its parking lots make that a challenge in many markets.

Enter Walmart, which certainly has the real estate to solve the problem.

Walmart has a massive footprint

One of the bigger challenges when it comes to EV chargers is that there's no fully updated app or service that reliably points you toward a charging station. A lot of apps exist, but there have been countless times I follow directions to a charging station, only to find that it's not there, it's broken, or it's only for Teslas.

Very few retailers have enough real estate to solve the EV industry's charging problem. Dollar General, for example, has more than 20,000 U.S. locations, but most have relatively small parking lots, and the chain's audience does not really overlap heavily with people who own EVs.

That second part might be a problem for Walmart as well, but the chain certainly could make it convenient for EV owners in need of a charge.

"Approximately 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart or Sam’s Club," Walmart shared on its website.

That would allow it to provide the mass level of charging that Tesla and other EV makers need to make their vehicles truly viable.

"The U.S. is expected to need roughly 1.2 million public EV chargers by 2030 — a massive increase from roughly 219,000 public charging ports available today," according to The 2030 National Charging Network report from NREL.

Walmart adds EV chargers

Walmart has been quietly adding EV charging stations since 2023.

"By 2030, we intend to build our own EV fast-charging network at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations coast-to-coast," the chain shared in a press release.

The company has stepped up those efforts.

"Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, has increased the size of its electric vehicle charging network in the United States by 50% in just two months," according to Inside EVs.

The retailer has not shared many details about its plans.

More Retail:

"The initial development was quite slow. The first locations became operational in April of last year, and the multinational company reached 10 charging stations in November 2025. Three months later, the network size had doubled, reaching 20 stations in February, and now that number has gone up to 31," the EV website added.

Walmart installs 400-kilowatt chargers exclusively, either from Alpitronic or ABB, with each stall being fitted with an NACS cable and a CCS1 port. That means that all widely sold EVs, including Tesla models, can be charged there.

Charging anxiety is a reason some people don't buy an EV.

Shutterstock

Americans are wary of EVs

The current political climate has lessened Americans' interest in EVs.

"Despite the wide variety of electric vehicle (EV) models now available — over 75 options introduced in the past four years — AAA’s latest survey highlights buyers’ continued hesitation. Only 16% of U.S. adults report being 'very likely' or 'likely' to purchase a fully electric vehicle (EV) as their next car, the lowest percentage recorded of EV interest since 2019. The percentage of consumers indicating they would be 'unlikely' or 'very unlikely' to purchase an EV rose from 51% to 63%, the highest since 2022," according to a AAA survey.

The study showed why people are hesitant to buy an EV.

High battery repair costs (62%) deterred many.
Purchase price (59%) discouraged others.
Respondents perceived EVs as unsuitable for long-distance travel (57%).
They perceived a lack of convenient public charging stations (56%) and feared running out of charge while driving (55%).
Almost a third (31%) of those undecided or unlikely to buy an EV had safety concerns.
More than a quarter (27%) reported challenges installing charging stations at their residences.
More than one in 10 (12%) cited the potential reduction or elimination of tax credits and rebates.

EVs, at least in the United States, face a murky future.

"Despite advancements in the EV industry and the growing availability of models, public perception regarding the future of EVs remains uncertain. The percentage of U.S. drivers who believe that most cars will be electric within the next ten years has significantly declined from 40% in 2022 to 23% this year," AAA reported.

TheStreet's retail advisor and RTMNexus CEO Dominick Miserandino think that Walmart is right to add EV chargers.

"I literally just left a Walmart charging," he said in a message to TheStreet. "To me, it's a genius idea because the cost of implementing the chargers and even sometimes have free charges, creates a network of people who are stopping to not only fill up for 20 minutes, they have the opportunity to go shopping."

Tesla stock shaky after new model denial

Tony Owusu — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 23:17:00 GMT

Well, that didn't take long.

Tesla China denied a report this week that said the electric vehicle company is developing a new, smaller SUV model to be produced at its Shanghai factory. Tesla China says "market information claiming that Tesla is developing a new, smaller, and cheaper electric SUV is inaccurate," Electrek reported, citing the Chinese financial wire Cailian Press.

On Thursday, April 9, Reuters reported that Tesla is developing a new electric SUV and has contacted suppliers about manufacturing logistics and specifications for various components.

The vehicle was supposed to be more than 18 inches shorter in length than Tesla’s current Model Y SUV (14 ft vs 15.7 ft) and was to be cheaper than the Model Y, which currently has an MSRP of $39,990 for the lowest-tier model.

The vehicle would be produced in China, according to four Reuters sources familiar with the discussions, with future plans to expand production to the U.S. and Europe. Tesla’s Shanghai factory, which exports to Europe and other markets, saw production rise by nearly 9% year over year to 85,670 in the first quarter.

Tesla shares show volatility after company denies working on new vehicle

Either Reuters sources were wrong, or Tesla wasn't ready for this information to become public, because the company has denied the report.

The denial has Tesla's stock going on a rollercoaster ride Friday morning, April 10, with shares dipping as low as $345.59 shortly after the opening bell, though the stock was up 0.14% to $346.06 at last check.

Investors may have been keen on a new model after the company shared it was mothballing its Model S and Model X due to a lack of demand. The Model 3 was the smaller, cheaper version of the Model S, and its widespread adoption after its July 2017 debut helped propel Tesla deliveries (and shares) to the levels they enjoy now.

Tesla's stock has fallen 4.5% over the past five days, 13.28% over the past month, and more than 16% over the past six months. Year to date, shares are down nearly 21%.

When Tesla confirmed it was ending production of the Model 3 and Model X, it said it would refocus its efforts on humanoid robots and driverless cars. However, according to Reuters sources, Tesla also realizes that “global markets won’t see meaningful adoption — nor regulatory acceptance — of driverless vehicles for years.”

So developing a new vehicle would seem to run counter to that messaging.

However, as much as Tesla likes to say it is not just a car company, more than 70% of its revenue ($69.5 billion in 2025) comes from automotive sales, which includes leasing, regulatory credits, and vehicle sales.

Service revenue from its vehicles (including supercharging, vehicle insurance, and repairs) totaled another $12.7 billion.

Auto sales already aren’t a high-margin business, and its automotive gross margin (excluding regulatory credits) actually dipped into the red for the first time in 2025, according to Reuters.

Tesla's stock has fallen 4.5% over the past five days and 13.28% over the past month.

Photo by benedek on Getty Images

Stakes for Tesla “could not be higher,” analysts say

Earlier this year, Tesla indicated it was pulling the plug on the Model S and Model X and would replace that production capacity with Optimus humanoid robots as part of the company’s plan to build 1 million of them per year.

However, analysts at BNP Paribas aren’t taking this Tesla experiment lightly, since the company is also spending heavily to make it happen.

“Given Tesla’s sizable cash burn this year ($7 billion estimate by BNPP) and indications for massive multi-year investments on the horizon tied to a TeraFab and 100 GW solar capacity, the ‘stakes’ of TSLA’s demonstrated robotaxi and Optimus progress could not be higher,” analysts said in a recent note.

According to BNP, the other models that combined for 16,000 vehicles in the quarter benefited from artificially inflated demand, so, once again, moving off of them makes sense. Still, Musk has made some pretty big promises about what Optimus and Robotaxi can do, and the firm says it’s time for Tesla to “put up or shut up” in 2026.

BNP reiterated its underperform rating and $280 price target on Tesla shares, representing a potential 22% downside from the stock’s current level.

Tesla finally makes move fans, and investors, have been waiting for

Tony Owusu — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:17:00 GMT

Tesla disappointed many of its day-one fans when it revealed it was mothballing the Model S and Model X due to low demand, so it could shift production capacity to other projects, such as humanoid robots.

This week, however, reports indicate the company is gearing up to produce a new vehicle that follows the success blueprint laid out by its popular Model 3.

Tesla has contacted suppliers in recent weeks as it develops an all-new, smaller, cheaper electric SUV, Reuters reported Thursday, April 9, citing four people familiar with the planning.

This is the same formula Tesla used to turn the Model 3 into the enormous success it became after its July 2017 debut. Tesla was never the same after it shifted from making luxury-priced vehicles to an affordable model for the mass market.

The Model 3 was priced at $35,000 at launch, much more in line with what Americans are used to paying for their sedans.

Tesla has bundled its Model 3 delivery numbers with those of its other successful brand, Model Y, since 2020, so exact sales numbers are difficult to determine.

But last year, Tesla China VP Grace Tao shared on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, that the company had sold more than 3 million Model 3s worldwide since 2017, according to Teslarati.

In the first quarter this year, Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 341,893 deliveries, while the “other models,” like the Model S and Model X (which will officially end production forever later this year) and the Cybertruck, accounted for the remaining 16,000+ deliveries.

Now, Tesla is looking to rekindle that magic with a new SUV.

Tesla is building a new, affordable SUV for the mass market

Tesla is developing a new electric SUV and has contacted suppliers about manufacturing logistics and specifications for various components, Reuters reported Thursday, April 9.

The vehicle is more than 18 inches shorter in length than Tesla's current Model Y SUV (14 ft vs 15.7 ft) and will be cheaper than the Model Y, which currently has an MSRP of $39,990 for the lowest-tier model.

The vehicle would be produced in China, according to Reuters sources, with future plans to expand production to the U.S. and Europe. Tesla's Shanghai factory, which exports to Europe and other markets, saw production rise by nearly 9% year over year to 85,670 in the first quarter.

When Tesla confirmed it was ending Model 3 and Model X production, it said it would refocus its efforts on humanoid robots and driverless cars. However, according to Reuters sources, Tesla also realizes that "global markets won't see meaningful adoption — nor regulatory acceptance — of driverless vehicles for years."

So in the meantime, while the company says it is not a car company, it will lean more into cars as it waits for consumers and regulators to catch up to its vision of the future.

The vehicle is still in the early development stage, and Reuters couldn't verify that Tesla has actually green-lighted its production. The news service noted that Tesla has hinted at producing numerous vehicles in the past (including a Roadster super car and Semi freight truck in 2017) and then showed little to no follow-through on actually producing those vehicles.

In the end, this news may be much ado about nothing. But it does signal that the company is at least thinking about how it can turn around its struggling car business.

Tesla prepares to develop a new, smaller, cheaper electric SUV.

Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Tesla has strong 2026 start after dismal 2025 deliveries

Tesla as a whole has seen demand issues for a while, as falling EV sales in the U.S. and China in general have combined with Elon Musk’s deteriorating personal brand.

Tesla’s annual revenue declined in 2025 for the first time ever, as deliveries also fell for the second consecutive year. Tesla says it is much more than a car company, and that its future lies in artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.

But as much as Tesla likes to say it is not just a car company, more than 70% of its revenue ($69.5 billion in 2025) comes from automotive sales, which includes leasing, regulatory credits, and vehicle sales.

Service revenue stemming from its vehicles (this includes supercharging, vehicle insurance, and repairs) generated another $12.7 billion.

Auto sales already aren’t a high-margin business, and its automotive gross margin (excluding regulatory credits) actually dipped into the red for the first time in 2025, according to Reuters.

Stakes for Tesla "could not be higher," analysts say

However, analysts at BNP Paribas aren’t taking this Tesla experiment lightly because the company is also spending a lot to make it happen.

“Given Tesla’s sizable cash burn this year ($7 billion estimate by BNPP) and indications for massive multi-year investments on the horizon tied to a TeraFab and 100 GW solar capacity, the ‘stakes’ of TSLA’s demonstrated robotaxi and Optimus progress could not be higher,” analysts said in a recent note.

According to BNP, the other models that combined delivered 16,000 vehicles in the quarter benefited from demand that was artificially inflated, so once again, moving off of them makes sense. Still, Musk has made some pretty big promises about what Optimus and Robotaxi can do, and the firm says it’s time for Tesla to "put up or shut up" in 2026.

“A critical factor to this year is the Co.’s progress rate in its active Robotaxi fleet, which is climbing yet still limited to just two cities. The core catalysts for TSLA center on its ability to show meaningful progress toward its AI-defined future, inclusive of Robotaxi fleet expansion (targeting 7 new cities in 1H26) and commercialized production of Optimus by year-end.”

If their analysis seems a bit dim, the firm is one of the few on Wall Street with a negative view of the stock.

BNP reiterated its underperform rating and $280 price target on Tesla shares, representing a potential 22% downside from the stock’s current level.

Tesla shares were up 1.3% to $347.57 at last check Thursday afternoon, April 9.

Retirement expert issues stark warning on AI and 401(k)s

Faizan Farooque — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 11:07:00 GMT

For years, technology stocks became a permanent fixture within their portfolios for millions of retirement savers.

Workers who steadily added money to 401(k)s, IRAs, and target-date funds made huge strides, thanks to major stock indexes that became increasingly dominated by a small number of powerful tech stocks.

From 2009 through 2025, the Nasdaq-100 delivered roughly 17% annualized returns, while the tech-heavy S&P 500 posted about 11% annualized gains during the same period. For a lot of Americans, those returns became a part of their long-term retirement planning.

Then artificial intelligence made everything better.

Investors poured money into Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Meta Platforms (META) and other big-time tech companies that normally dominate such portfolios.

The investment in these portfolios is based on the belief that huge AI spending will unlock new growth, CNBC reported. The market mostly thought that AI would make software companies' products more valuable, necessary, and profitable, which helped them, too.

It's getting harder to defend optimism now.

At the same time, Wall Street is looking more closely at the huge amounts of money that need to be spent on AI to stay competitive and whether those investments will really make the money that the market has already priced in.

That matters, even outside Silicon Valley.

Many who are saving for retirement now have a lot of money in the same tech-heavy funds and indexes whose prices are changing. That might be a hard but manageable swing for younger workers, but a much bigger problem for people who are close to retirement.

Tech stocks became a retirement default

Technology did not become a retirement mainstay overnight. It became one over time, thanks to years of outperforming.

A lot of people who saved didn't mean to put too much money in technology. They only owned broad market funds, large-cap growth funds, or target-date funds that became more focused on the sector as the market's winners grew. What began as passive diversity gradually evolved into a subtle reliance on a select few corporations.

The concentration is really high.

Forbes says Morningstar data show that the 10 biggest actively managed mutual funds included in 401(k) plans have an average of 38% of their portfolios in technology and communication services. Some of the same businesses that investors think of as Big Tech, including Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta, are in the second group. The "Magnificent 7," including Apple (AAPL), Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon (AMZN), Meta, Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA), now make up about a third of the S&P 500.

That setup worked great, as long as leadership maintained focus and momentum was strong.

However, it made retirement accounts more vulnerable to a sudden change when the market's view of AI, software profits, and megacap spending changed.

Although it felt like diversification at first glance, such thinking was an incorrect assumption. It masks a major issue, since performance was not dependent on a broad base. Instead, the focus was on a small cluster of companies continuing to dominate.

Bill Bengen, the retired adviser whose research helped popularize the 4% rule, is already leaning more defensively, CNBC noted. He cut his equity exposure from 65% to 32% during the last few years and eliminated tech stock exposure completely. As he put it, it is “too difficult to determine how it’ll shake out.”

That remains the heart of the issue.

This is not just about whether tech stocks are performing badly. It is about whether millions of savers, many who did not want to take a chance on Big Tech, now need to anxiously depend on the outcome of the AI trade.

For most of the last two years, artificial intelligence made the bullish case stronger. Investors saw AI as a good thing for both software businesses and the biggest cloud and semiconductor companies, thinking that the technology will make moats stronger instead of weaker. The end consequence was a market that continued giving the same winners more money.

But long streaks of wins might disguise risk.

When one industry is in charge for years, investors often forget how much of their future depends on it.

In this scenario, it's not just the fact that technology stocks might go down that worries people. It is that millions of people saving for retirement may be more vulnerable to a change in the AI narrative than they ever planned to be.

Photo by Jose Luis Raota on Getty Images

AI is changing the software trade

The biggest shift is now focused on software.

During the height of the AI boom, the market thought that better tools would increase software companies' worth. Some investors are starting to worry that the opposite might be true for some parts of the sector. Certain companies may lose some of the edge that once made their stocks worth more if AI coding tools can help make competing products faster and cheaper.

That price change is already happening.

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF(IGV), which is broadly tracking software stocks, is down 25% this year, according to the Forbes report.

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The Magnificent 7 have also fallen about 11% on average year to date, as the broader market puts a damper on things and investors reassess how durable the AI trade really is.

There is another point of pressure. To stay ahead in AI, the biggest tech companies are spending huge amounts of money on chips, servers, and data centers. At first, the market liked that spending. Investors now want clearer proof that the money will make money over time instead of just keeping the company competitive at a higher cost.

That doesn't mean every AI investment will fail or every software company is broken. It does, however, mean that the market is getting pickier.

Companies that have strong ecosystems, pricing power, and real demand may still do well. People who have weaker products or positions that are harder to defend could have a much harder time than they did during the first part of the AI rally.

That's why the story is so important for regular investors. Wall Street no longer thinks that AI is always good for every business in the chain. It is starting to separate the likely winners from the likely losers, and that kind of price change doesn't usually stay in one part of the market.

A market that spent years rewarding AI optimism must now face up to anxiety. That is a very different exercise, and it raises the odds of more volatility for the same names that became the gold standard for retirement accounts for quite some time.

Bill Bengen’s warning matters most for near-retirees

The folks most at risk are often not the youngest investors who still have decades to save.

People who are close to retirement or who are already moving money out of their portfolios are more worried. When the market goes down early in retirement, taking money out can lock in losses and leave less money to invest when the market goes back up.

That is what sequence-of-returns risk is all about. It gets worse when a portfolio is strongly attached to one leadership group that suddenly loses momentum.

That's why this story is more important than a normal drop in growth stocks.

If AI is affecting how investors value software firms and the biggest names in IT, it won't just affect hedge funds and traders. It will show up in the account balances of regular savers who felt they owned a broad, diversified retirement portfolio.

Key takeaways for retirement savers

Many 401(k)s and retirement funds now heavily involve technology after several years of excellent performance.
Artificial intelligence is forcing stockholders to revamp and rethink software valuations and competitive benefits.
Big Tech spending on AI infrastructure is facing much tougher scrutiny from the market.
People who are close to retiring are at even more risk because taking money out during downturns can permanently lower future gains.
Diversification matters more when one sector has dominated returns for as long as technology has.

None of it means that investors should sell their tech stocks right away.

Some advisers nevertheless say that the recent drop is a good thing and a chance to invest for the long run. Some people think rebalancing is the better option, especially for individuals close to retirement who can't afford to wait for a protracted recovery.

It's easier to learn from the market argument than from the practical lesson: Know what you possess.

A lot of portfolios that seem to be diverse on the surface are nonetheless very dependent on software valuations, mega-cap spending, and the future of the AI buildout. It was easy to forget about that need while the exchange was still going on.

Once investors start to wonder whether AI will make Big Tech even more powerful or hurt the portions of the model that made those businesses so valuable in the first place, it becomes much harder to ignore.

For years, tech stocks helped people save money for retirement. Investors thought that foundation was strong, but artificial intelligence is now challenging that idea.

Morgan Stanley delivers blunt message to Tesla stock investors

Moz Farooque — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:33:00 GMT

Tesla’s (TSLA) recent drop has investors asking the tough questions, but Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco has a clear response.

The bank reiterated an equal-weight rating on the stock while keeping its $415 price target, a 17% upside from current levels.

Tesla stock, though, has been under duress of late after a major delivery miss in Q1, rattling confidence, sparking concerns over demand and margins.

On top of that, there’s a new wrinkle.

Tesla’s energy storage business, which has performed consistently over the years, also disappointed. Coupled with a steep drop in deliveries, it was enough to shake investor sentiment.

Percoco isn’t the only analyst bullish on Tesla's long-term case. As I covered recently, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives stood by a $600 price target, despite Tesla’s delivery and energy storage miss.

Long-time Tesla bull Ives said the sluggishness reflects broader EV softness and Tesla’s strategic shift, not a broken story.

However, Morgan Stanley isn’t ready to turn bearish yet.

The firm argues that the recent sluggishness, particularly in the energy storage segment, may be due more to timing than a true slowdown.

The bigger story, it says, is still ahead.

Tesla stock returns vs. the S&P 500

1W: Tesla -2.43% versus the S&P 5004.30%
1M: Tesla -12.62% versus the S&P 500 -1.83%
6M: Tesla -23.52% versus the S&P 500 -1.83%
YTD: Tesla -22.92% versus the S&P 500 -3.34%
1Y: Tesla 44.78% versus the S&P 500 30.40%
3Y: Tesla 87.32% versus the S&P 500 61.19%
5Y: Tesla 50.36% versus the S&P 500 62.42%
10Y: Tesla 1,859.06% versus the S&P 500 220.17%
Source: Seeking Alpha

Tesla Q1 deliveries and energy storage update

Tesla’s Q1 update showed improvements from a year-over-year perspective, but it tracked comfortably behind what Mr. Market had been looking for.

Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in Q1 2026, Reuters reported, up 6.3% from 336,681 in the prior-year period, but below the 368,903Wall Street estimate and Tesla’s own estimate of 365,645.
Production reached 408,386 vehicles, leaving Tesla with 50,363 vehicles produced but not delivered in the quarter, raising concerns about near-term demand and inventory levels.
Moreover, as GuruFocus notes, Tesla’s current days' inventory ratio stands at 61.01, above its 10-year median of 57.82, suggesting that inventory is building relative to demand.
Energy storage was a laggard as well, with deployments of 8.8 GWh, down from 10.4 GWh in Q1 2025 and behind Tesla’s consensus estimate of 14.4 GWh.
Additionally, storage deployments fell 15.4% year over year, underscoring the breadth of the miss across Tesla’s Q1 update.

Morgan Stanley reiterates its neutral rating on Tesla, keeps its $415 target, and highlights Robotaxi progress as a key catalyst.

Harnik/Getty Images

Why Morgan Stanley isn’t panicking on Tesla stock

Morgan Stanley’s view is a lot more nuanced than the market’s reaction.

Though Tesla’s latest figures are soft and the delivery miss adds new pressure, analyst Peroco says investors are focusing too much on a weak quarter.

Instead, he feels it's a lot wiser to focus on the bigger forces shaping the stock.

The energy-storage miss looks more like a delay than a miss. Tesla’s energy storage deployments came in below analyst expectations, marking the first year-over-year decline in the segment since 2022. Percoco feels it’s “far too early” to call it a trend, saying that project timing played a critical role in shaping the results.
Demand drivers are in place. Morgan Stanley underscores improving economics in utility-scale storage, along with growing demand from data centers. So despite the near-term weakness, the broader demand backdrop looks robust.
Autonomy is the real stock catalyst. Percoco lays out the case that Tesla’s ability to scale an unsupervised Robotaxi fleet is at the heart of the EV giant’s valuation.
Consequently, he is watching Austin closely, along with seven new city launches expected by the end of June, as signals that Tesla’s next leg of expansion would most likely come from software and autonomy.

Investor takeaway on Tesla stock

It’s best to tread carefully with Tesla stock at this point.

From a technical perspective, according to Seeking Alpha, the stock trades at 5.58% below the 10-day moving average, 13.23% below the 50-day, 17.65% below the 100-day, and 12.73% below the 200-day.

Clearly, that underscores broad-based technical sluggishness, with short-, medium-, and long-term trends all working against the stock.

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At the same time, valuation doesn’t offer much comfort, either.

Tesla’s non-GAAP trailing P/E is 211.27, compared to the sector median of 15.01, and its forward P/E is 171.41 compared to 15.03 for the sector.

The numbers show that investors are still paying a ton for each dollar of profit, pricing in plenty of future growth.

Moreover, Tesla trades at 13.66 times sales compared to the sector median at 1.30, underscoring the same trend.

Given the current setup, it’s probably wise to wait for better technical support or build a position slowly, as Tesla stock still trades at a hefty premium.

Wall Street price targets for Tesla stock

Average Wall Street price target: $416.15, implying 20.05% upside, with a high target of $600 and a low target of $125
Wedbush: $600
Baird: $538
Mizuho: $540
RBC Capital: $500
Truist Securities: $438
Morgan Stanley: $415
Source: Benzinga

JPMorgan has a stark warning on Tesla stock

Hillary Remy — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:03:00 GMT

Tesla just missed on deliveries, missed on energy storage, and now has one of Wall Street's most prominent bears renewing his case for significant further declines.

JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman reiterated an Underweight rating on Tesla on April 6 and maintained his $145 price target, which implies roughly 60% downside from where the stock currently trades. The note came after Tesla reported first-quarter deliveries of 358,023 vehicles, 4% below the Bloomberg consensus of 372,000 and 7% below JPMorgan's own forecast of 385,000, according to EV Magazine.

"We advise investors approach TSLA shares with a high degree of caution," Brinkman wrote in his note.

What the delivery numbers showed

Tesla produced 408,386 vehicles in the first quarter of 2026 but delivered only 358,023, leaving a gap of more than 50,000 unsold vehicles, according to EV Magazine. While deliveries were up 6.3% year over year and production rose 12.6%, both figures fell short of analyst expectations.

More Tesla:

Energy storage was a sharper disappointment. Tesla deployed 8.8 gigawatt-hours in the quarter, down 15% from a year earlier, marking the first year-over-year decline since the second quarter of 2022. The result came in 42% below JPMorgan's model of 15.1 GWh.

JPMorgan cuts its earnings estimates

Brinkman lowered his first-quarter earnings per share estimate to $0.30 from $0.43, below the Bloomberg consensus of $0.38. He also cut his full-year 2026 EPS forecast to $1.80 from $2.00, which now sits below the consensus estimate of $1.95.

The note acknowledged Tesla's strengths, including what Brinkman described as a "highly differentiated business model, appealing product portfolio, and leading-edge technology." But he argued those positives are "more than offset by above-average execution risk, rising competition, growing controversy with regard to the brand, and valuation that seems to be pricing in a lot.”

On the question of expansion into lower-priced vehicles, Brinkman was pointed. "Expansion into higher volume segments with lower price points seems fraught with greater risk relative to demand, execution, and competition," he wrote.

The headwinds stacking up against Tesla

JPMorgan's bearish stance reflects a broader set of pressures bearing down on the company. The Trump administration allowed the $7,500 federal EV purchase incentive to expire, removing a key demand driver. Chinese competition continues to intensify. And growing public scrutiny tied to Elon Musk's political activities has added a brand risk element that is difficult to quantify.

Tesla's stock has fallen nearly 20% year to date. The $145 price target JPMorgan is maintaining represents its view of where the stock should trade by December 2026.

STR/Getty Images

Where Wall Street stands

JPMorgan's call goes firmly against the broader analyst consensus. Of the 54 analysts covering Tesla, only 10 carry a negative rating on the stock, according to CNBC.

Morgan Stanley sits at the other end of the spectrum, maintaining an Equalweight rating with a $415 price target. Analyst Andrew Percoco described Tesla's ability to scale its unsupervised robotaxi fleet as "the most important catalyst for the stock this year," adding that he expects the stock "to trade in close correlation to progress in the scaling of the unsupervised robotaxi fleet in Austin and the seven incremental city launches expected by the end of June."

Where key analysts stand on Tesla heading into Q1 earnings:

JPMorgan: Underweight, $145 price target, ~60% downside
Morgan Stanley: Equalweight, $415 price target, robotaxi scaling key catalyst
Of 54 analysts covering Tesla, only 10 hold a negative rating

Tesla reports first-quarter 2026 earnings on April 22 after market close. Investors will be watching management's commentary on full-year delivery guidance, the energy storage ramp, and the robotaxi rollout timeline closely. JPMorgan's position is that the numbers, and the valuation, do not add up regardless of what that call delivers.

Tesla dodges more headaches as autonomous driving scores a win

Tony Owusu — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:07:00 GMT

Tesla scored a rare victory with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Monday after the Office of Defects and Investigations decided to close its investigation into its Actually Smart Summon tech, which allows drivers to summon their parked vehicles to them using just their phones.

The ODI opened an investigation into multiple reported crashes on January 6, 2025, and, after analyzing complaint data provided by Tesla and consumer complaints, the agency concluded that, since most of the reported crashes involved minor property damage and no serious injuries, it was ending its inquiry.

More Tesla

The NHTSA has been busy auditing Tesla lately, including opening an "engineering analysis" into the company last month over its other autonomous driving tech, Full Self-Driving (Supervised).

Autonomous driving in general is a hot topic as thousands of them operate in major cities like San Francisco, Austin, and Miami every day.

The NHTSA opened a Preliminary Evaluation in October to investigate an estimated 2,000 Waymo 5th-gen automated driving system-equipped vehicles, following a Georgia media report that revealed the company's vehicles did not stop for crossing schoolchildren despite repeated assertions that it had fixed the issue.

While those are different levels of autonomy from the investigation that just ended with Tesla, the technology is built on the same principles, and just because no one has been injured by Actually Smart Summon yet, it doesn't mean they won't be in the future.

Photo by CFOTO on Getty Images

NHTSA clears Tesla autonomous tech because of the lack of injuries, so far

On Monday, NHTSA announced that it is closing its investigation into Tesla's Actually Smart Summon tech, which acts as a short-distance autonomous system, after more than a year.

The agency says that out of millions of sessions, only a fraction of 1% resulted in an adverse incident, and none of them were fatal.

"Almost all those incidents took place where, typically early in a Summon session, the system or person using the app failed to fully detect or respond appropriately to vehicle surroundings, resulting in minor impacts. Incidents took place when app users did not have a complete 360-degree view of the surroundings in the app to assess situational awareness," ODI said.

"This limited the app user’s ability to determine whether an impact was imminent during initial vehicle maneuvers such as reversing in close proximity to an obstacle or a curb. ODI found that the impacts most often occurred with parking gates, adjacently parked vehicles, and short parking bollards."

Two of the crashes ODI investigated were related to camera blockages. In both cases, the vehicles were trying to navigate a snowy parking lot "with snow partially or fully obstructing the forward-facing cameras."

The technology didn't detect the camera blockage, and the vehicles collided with unoccupied parked vehicles.

Tesla issued an over-the-air software update to implement camera blockage detection, so users can know when the vehicle is in a blind spot; however, another recent investigation suggests that Tesla's camera blockage issue is recurring.

NHTSA opens ‘engineering analysis’ into Tesla FSD cameras

In March, the ODI announced it was escalating its investigation into Tesla FSD, opening an “engineering analysis” to evaluate Tesla Vision’s “degradation detection system.”

The NHTSA is investigating how much camera visibility is degraded by roadway conditions such as glare and airborne obstructions, and whether Tesla FSD (Supervised) can detect and adjust to the resulting degradation to still work safely.

“Available incident data raise concerns that Tesla’s degradation detection system, both as originally deployed and later updated, fails to detect and/or warn the driver appropriately under degraded visibility conditions,” the NHTSA said.

The agency has identified nine crashes in which it says Tesla FSD’s degradation systems may not have been functioning properly. It says FSD “did not detect common roadway conditions that impaired its visibility and/or provide alerts when camera performance had deteriorated until immediately before the crash occurred.”

And there could be many more instances that the agency does not know about because their review of Tesla’s responses to its request for more information revealed “additional crashes that occurred in similar environments and where the system either did not detect a degraded state, and/or it did not present the driver with an alert with adequate time for the driver to react.”

In each of those crashes, FSD lost track of or failed to detect a lead vehicle. Still, ODI says, Tesla has described “internal data and labeling limitations” that have prevented it from being sure it has caught every crash due to degraded vision. So there could be more crash incidents than are currently known.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla says it does not need LiDAR

While the NHTSA directly lists the lack of radar as a possible component in these crashes, Tesla says the system is unnecessary.

Most experts consider a light detection and ranging driver-assistance system to be the state-of-the-art technology. Tesla competitors like Toyota offer LiDAR, in addition to the camera-based system that Tesla FSD uses.

But Musk has called LiDAR an “expensive and unnecessary” fool’s errand, just “expensive hardware that’s worthless on the car.”

Recently, Tesla said that its FSD system has driven a cumulative total of 3.6 billion miles, nearly triple the 1.3 billion miles it reported a year ago.

Elon Musk makes a stunning claim about Tesla's chip future

Hillary Remy — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 23:03:00 GMT

On a Saturday night in Austin, standing inside a defunct power plant, Elon Musk delivered a message that cut straight to the heart of the AI chip shortage: His companies cannot get the chips they need, so they are going to build their own.

Musk shared on March 21 that Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI are launching a joint venture called Terafab, a semiconductor fabrication facility to be built adjacent to Tesla's Giga Texas campus in Austin. The project is estimated to cost between $20 billion and $25 billion, according to Electrek.

"We either build the Terafab, or we don't have the chips, and we need the chips, so we build the Terafab," Musk said during a livestream broadcast on X (the former Twitter).

What Terafab is designed to do

The facility aims to produce chips consuming 1 terawatt of compute power per year, making it by far the largest semiconductor manufacturing ambition ever planned.

Musk outlined two types of chips the facility would produce.

One is optimized for edge inference and designed to power Tesla's Full Self-Driving software and its Optimus humanoid robots. The other is hardened for the space environment and intended for SpaceX's planned network of orbital data centers, according to Data Center Dynamics.

More Tesla:

In terms of compute output, Musk projected 100 to 200 gigawatts per year on the terrestrial side, with the remainder of the 1 terawatt target going to space-based AI compute aboard solar-powered satellites.

The facility targets 2-nanometer process technology, currently the leading edge of the semiconductor industry, and is designed to consolidate chip design, lithography, fabrication, memory production, advanced packaging, and testing under a single roof.

Initial output is set at 100,000 wafer starts per month. The full-scale target is 1 million wafer starts per month, which Electrek noted would represent roughly 70% of TSMC's entire current global output, from a facility operated by companies that have never fabricated a chip.

Why Musk says he has no choice but to build semiconductor fabrication facility

Musk's argument centers on scale. He said all the current fabrication facilities on Earth produce only about 2% of what Tesla and SpaceX will eventually need for autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots, AI training clusters, and space-based compute systems.

He described the global chip industry as unable to expand quickly enough to meet demand, while expressing gratitude to existing partners, including TSMC, Samsung, and Micron, saying he would like them to expand as quickly as they can, according to Data Center Dynamics.

Tesla's AI5 chip is among the first products the pilot facility is designed to produce, with small-batch production anticipated in 2026 and volume production in 2027.

Key Terafab specifications unveiled:

Location: Adjacent to Giga Texas, eastern Travis County, Austin
Estimated cost: $20 billion to $25 billion, according to Electrek
Target output: 100 to 200 gigawatts per year of terrestrial chips; up to 1 terawatt including space chips
Process node: 2-nanometer technology
Initial wafer starts: 100,000 per month, scaling to 1 million at full capacity
First product: Tesla's AI5 chip, small-batch 2026, volume production 2027

The Terafb facility aims to produce chips consuming 1 terawatt of compute power per year.

Bocsi/Getty Images

The Terafabquestions Musk has not answered

The Terafab plan drew significant skepticism from industry analysts. Musk has no background in semiconductor manufacturing, a field that is notoriously complex and capital-intensive. No timeline was given for when the full-scale facility would be operational.

Analysts at Bernstein estimated that producing 1 terawatt of AI silicon per year would require processing the equivalent of more than 22 million GPU wafers annually, implying a total capital requirement of $4 trillion to $5 trillion, according to Tom's Hardware.

A single, modern leading-edge 2nm fab costs roughly $25 billion to $35 billion to build, and takes approximately 38 months to construct in the U.S., according to Electrek. For context, TSMC has spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars building its 2nm capability.

Tesla's CFO acknowledged the full Terafab cost is not yet incorporated into Tesla's 2026 capital expenditure plan, which already exceeds $20 billion, Electrek said.

The announcement also comes as Tesla's auto business faces pressure. The company's sales declined for the second consecutive year in 2025, with declines in both Europe and China, Electrek added.

Musk has a history of ambitious announcements with timelines that prove overly ambitious. Whether Terafab follows that pattern or represents a genuine turning point in how AI companies think about chip supply is something the industry will be watching closely for years to come.

Tesla just pulled off an EV shocker no one saw coming

Faizan Farooque — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 11:37:00 GMT

Tesla(TSLA) is back in business after a brutal few quarters. It's at the top of the global battery-electric vehicle market, and the timing could not be more important.

The EV maker said it delivered 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter, ample growth to move past BYD’s 310,389 battery-electric sales and reclaim the global BEV crown. That's great news for Tesla and signals that demand for its cars remains high amid a troubling geopolitical atmosphere.

That's the good news for Tesla. The less comforting part is that the quarter was still Tesla's worst delivery quarter in a year and fell short of Wall Street's expectations.

What that means is that the result is not a clean win. The report, in my opinion, speaks to more of what the industry is going through rather than anything else.

Tesla’s lead came back, but not because everything is great

Tesla’s first-quarter total was up about 6.5% from a year earlier; however, investors hardly batted an eye. Reuters reported that deliveries missed analyst estimates, while Tesla also built far more vehicles than it sold, leading to more than 50,000 units left on the lot, Reuters indicated.

That gap is a sign that demand is still uneven, especially since the U.S. stopped giving incentives for electric vehicles and competition is growing in other countries.

More Tesla:

Even so, Tesla is stumbling upon gold. BYD is crumbling just at the wrong time.

BYD's car sales fell again in March, continuing a seven-month decline. Sales in the first quarter were down about 30% from the same time last year. BYD is still a big company and is still aggressively expanding into other countries, but its main market in China is no longer giving it the same easy boost.

China changed the math for both Tesla and BYD

What it all comes down to is policy.

China nixed its full EV purchase tax exemption beginning in 2026. Buyers now face a 5% purchase tax on new-energy vehicles that qualify. The benefit, however, is capped through 2027.

At the same time, Chinese regulators have tried to stop the brutal EV price war by making it illegal to sell cars for less than their cost, or use other dishonest pricing methods.

Those changes may aid the industry’s profit picture over time, but juicing sales with discounts also becomes harder as time goes by.

This is particularly significant for BYD, a formidable competitor in China's intense price competition. Weak domestic demand and price competition have already hurt the company's profits for 2025. However, management told analysts that the company still hopes to sell 1.5 million units overseas in 2026.

Tesla, meanwhile, is getting some support from China rather than a full rescue. China-made Tesla EV sales rose 8.7% in March, thanks to outstanding European demand for Shanghai-built vehicles. That is encouraging news, but critics will still see the quarter as soft when measured against Tesla's own standards.

Plus, bears will point to the Iran war. Gas prices are rising, as ABC News pointed out, driven by an unpopular war, The New York Times reported. As a result, people are increasingly shifting toward electric alternatives, providing an unusual tailwind for electric vehicle companies.

Tesla is back in business.

Hitij/Getty Images

What comes next for Tesla and BYD

The next task is simple. Tesla needs to prove it's not a transitional champion.

The company is still leaning on the Model 3 and Model Y, but investors remain concerned about bigger long-term bets like Robotaxis and humanoid robots. It's not only about car volume.

Tesla's main car business is still being hurt by falling demand for electric vehicles, the end of the U.S. tax credit, and tougher competition around the world.

BYD’s story is completely unique, though. It is slowing down at home, but speeding up its push abroad. BYD expects overseas markets to eventually make up about half its business, Reuters reported, with new local production planned in Europe and Indonesia. Tesla may not be able to keep its lead for long if that expansion works.

Yes, Tesla did win the quarter. But the most important thing to remember is that the fight over electric vehicles is becoming more political, more global, and less about who can brag about their deliveries from year to year.

In a market like that, today's comeback may still seem weak.

Veteran analyst sends message to Tesla investors after Q1 miss

Moz Farooque — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 15:03:00 GMT

Tesla (TSLA) stock just took a body blow after another underwhelming Q1 delivery report, but Dan Ives isn’t flinching.

The veteran Wedbush analyst doubled down on his Buy rating for the stock, standing by a $600 price target, even after Tesla missed Wall Street's delivery and energy storage expectations.

That points to nearly 65% upside, and represents the highest rating on Wall Street for the EV giant.

For perspective, at the time of writing, Tesla stock traded at $360.59 onYahoo Finance.

That leaves the stock down $20.67 a share, or nearly 5.4%, from its $381.26 close before it released its Q1 delivery and energy deployment update.

The selloff ensued after Tesla’s Q1 delivery report, which showed 358,023 vehicle deliveries and 8.8 GWh of energy storage deployments that came in behind expectations, per Reuters.

For context, at its current size, Tesla’s one-day drop points to nearly $82.2 billion in lost market capitalization.

Even after its slide, Tesla still commands a market cap of nearly $1.35 trillion.

That said, the company’s Q1 delivery figures point to clear pressure.

Deliveries fell short of expectations for the second consecutive quarter, while energy storage deployments also missed estimates by a significant margin. For many investors, that invites fresh questions about demand and near-term growth.

Nevertheless, Ives is playing a different game.

Ives wrote that,

So instead of the quarterly sluggishness, Ives is doubling down on Tesla’s long-term transformation into an AI and robotics bellwether.

Tesla shares fall after Q1 delivery miss as analyst maintains bullish outlook on long-term growth

Bloomberg / Contributor

Tesla stock returns vs the S&P 500

1W: Tesla stock returned -3.10%, compared with the S&P 500 at 1.63%.
1M: Tesla stock returned -10.59%, compared with the S&P 500 at -4.34%.
6M: Tesla stock returned -17.30%, compared with the S&P 500 at -1.98%.
YTD: Tesla stock returned -19.82%, compared with the S&P 500 at -3.84%.
1Y: Tesla stock returned 27.53%, compared with the S&P 500 at 16.08%.
3Y: Tesla stock returned 73.81%, compared with the S&P 500 at 60.19%.
5Y: Tesla stock returned 63.47%, compared with the S&P 500 at 63.75%.
Source: Seeking Alpha.

Tesla’s recent delivery track record

Q1 2026: Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles and deployed 8.8 GWh of energy storage. Deliveries missed Tesla’s company consensus of 365,645. Deliveries rose 6.3% year-over-year.
Q4 2025: Tesla delivered 418,227 vehicles and deployed 14.2 GWh of energy storage. Deliveries missed Tesla’s company consensus of 422,850. Deliveries fell 15.6% year over year.
Q3 2025: Tesla delivered 497,099 vehicles and deployed 12.5 GWh of energy storage. Deliveries beat expectations of about 443,919. Deliveries rose 7.4% year -over-year.
Q2 2025: Tesla delivered 384,122 vehicles and deployed 9.6 GWh of energy storage. Deliveries missed the estimates of about 394,378. Deliveries fell 13.5% year-over-year.

What Dan Ives is saying about Tesla post its dismal Q1 showing

Despite posting another underwhelming quarter, Ives is sticking with his tune on Tesla stock.

He’s doubling down on the long-term bull case, making it clear that the recent miss does nothing to break the broader thesis.

The Q1 miss wasn’t a surprise: Ives called the quarter “underwhelming,” but argued that given the softness in EV demand and Tesla’s strategic pivot, it wasn’t a big surprise.
AI and autonomy remain the core bets: Ives sees Tesla as an EV company and, more broadly, an AI-driven platform. According to him, robotaxis, Full Self-Driving (FSD), and broader autonomy are the real drivers of its future valuation.
In September last year, as per Benzinga, Ives said that Wedbush “estimates the AI and autonomous opportunity is worth at least $1 trillion alone for Tesla”. Also, CEO Elon Musk said that, “The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale autonomous humanoid robots.”
Europe is a key bottleneck: Regulatory delays pertaining to FSD approvals continue to hold back growth in the region.
China remains a bright spot: Tesla’s deliveries in China jumped an incredible 35% year-over-year in the first couple of months of 2026, underscoring tremendous demand in a key market.
Massive investment cycle ahead:Reuters reports that Tesla plans nearly $20 billion in spending across AI infrastructure, robotaxi production, Optimus robots, and battery capacity, which will drive the next leg of expansion for its business.

Wall Street price targets for Tesla stock

Wall Street’s consensus price target for Tesla stock is $417.08, indicating 15.67% upside from the current price of $360.59.
Analyst target prices range from a high of $600 to a low of $125.00.
Wedbush’s Dan Ives: $600 (66.39% upside).
Baird’s Ben Kallo: $538 (49.20% upside).
Truist’s William Stein: $400 (10.93% upside).
Goldman Sachs’ Mark Delaney: $375 (4.00% upside).
Wells Fargo’s Colin Langan: $125 (65.33% downside).
Source: Barrons.

Investor takeaway on Tesla stock

Tesla is heading into a massive earnings test soon.

As per Seeking Alpha, earnings are due April 22 after the bell, with consensus estimates pointing to $0.40 normalized EPS, $0.25 GAAP EPS, and $22.97 billion in sales.

However, expectations are drifting lower into the print, with 5 upward EPS revisions and 8 downward revisions over the past 90 days.

More Tesla:

On valuation, Tesla still looks expensive based on popular metrics.

The EV giant’s non-GAAP trailing P/E ratiois 215.9 compared to the sector median of 14.8, while forward non-GAAP P/E is 174.3 versus 14.6 for the sector.

Even when pitted against Tesla’s own history, the stock looks stretched.

Trailing non-GAAP P/E is 71% above its five-year average, and its forward P/E is about 50% higher.

Moreover, from a technical standpoint, the setup is not strong.

Tesla is trading comfortably behind its 10-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day moving averages by 3.1%, 10.6%, 14.7%, and 9.2%, respectively.

Hence, it is prudent to wait for a cleaner setup or a post-report reset, which is the more disciplined move.

BNP Paribas warns stakes 'couldn't be higher' for Tesla stock investors

Tony Owusu — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:17:00 GMT

Tesla has already had a rough run in 2026, but on Thursday, April 2, the stock had its worst session of the year after the company reported first-quarter deliveries that fell short of industry expectations. Analysts at BNP Paribas are sounding the alarm, saying 2026 will be a make-or-break year for the electric vehicle maker.

Tesla reported first-quarter production of 408,386 vehicles and deliveries of 358,023, well short of analyst expectations of 370,000 and its internal consensus estimate of 365,000.

It wasn't all bad news: deliveries actually improved 6% year over year, but the increase is somewhat skewed since 2025's Q1 total was 13% lower than 2024's. So the company's comps were favorable.

Tesla's stock fell 5.4% Thursday, bringing its 2026 decline to more than 20% so far.

Tesla's Model 3 and Model Y accounted for 341,893 of the deliveries, while the "other models," like the Model S and Model X (which will officially end production forever later this year) and the Cybertruck, accounted for the remaining 16,000+ deliveries.

But while Musk criticizes the state of California on Twitter, and makes juvenile jokes about rockets, analysts at BNP Paribas have serious concerns about the company, saying its switch away from the Model S and Model X towards Optimus robots and Cybercabs better work, because Tesla's future may be at stake.

2026 has been a rollercoaster for Tesla so far.

Photo by Newsday LLC on Getty Images

Stakes for Tesla 'could not be higher' says BNP Paribas analysts

Earlier this year, Tesla announced it was pulling the plug on the Model S and Model X and would replace that production capacity with Optimus humanoid robots as part of the company's plan to build 1 million of them per year.

However, analysts at BNP Paribas aren't taking this Tesla experiment lightly because the company is also spending a lot of money to make it happen.

"Given Tesla's sizable cash burn this year ($7 billion estimate by BNPP) and indications for massive multi-year investments on the horizon tied to a TeraFab and 100 GW solar capacity, the 'stakes' of TSLA's demonstrated robotaxi and Optimus progress could not be higher," analysts said in a note Thursday.

According to BNP, the other models that combined delivered 16,000 vehicles in the quarter benefited from demand that was artificially inflated, so once again, moving off of them makes sense. However, Musk has made some pretty big promises about what Optimus and Robotaxi can do, and the firm says it's time for Tesla to put up or shut up in 2026.

"We view 1Q26’s deliveries - modestly below consensus - as yet another input to the TSLA stock’s challenged setup for this year, with EGS storage deployments also meaningfully light," BNP analysts said.

"A critical factor to this year is the Co.’s progress rate in its active Robotaxi fleet, which is climbing yet still limited to just two cities. The core catalysts for TSLA center on its ability to show meaningful progress toward its AI-defined future, inclusive of Robotaxi fleet expansion (targeting 7 new cities in 1H26) and commercialized production of Optimus by year-end."

If their analysis seems a bit dim, the firm is one of the few on Wall Street with a negative view of the stock.

BNP reiterated its underperform rating and $280 price target on Tesla shares, representing a potential 22% downside from the stock's current level.

Tesla investors get good news out of the latest delivery data

It wasn't all doom and gloom for Tesla in the first quarter.

The electric vehicle maker topped Chinese rival BYD for the global EV sales crown, and the company even increased deliveries in BYD's home country as sales of Model 3 and Model Y cars made in Tesla's Shanghai factory, which includes exports to Europe and other markets, rose by nearly 9% year over year to 85,670, Reuters reported.

It was the fifth straight month of rising sales and the second straight quarter of year-over-year gains.

After losing close to half of its market share in Europe last year, driven by numerous issues, including CEO Elon Musk’s increased involvement in politics. The company is showing signs of recovery in the region so far in 2026.

Year over year, Tesla registrations in France rose 55% in February, 74% in Spain, and 32% in Norway. Tesla more than doubled its sales in Portugal, with registrations jumping 112%.

France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands account for 60% of European EV sales on their own, and the results are mixed.

France and Germany saw registration gains of 52% and 24%, respectively, while Belgium and the Netherlands experienced declines of 11.5% and 35.4%, respectively.

Tesla’s sales in Europe declined by nearly 40% from January to April 2025, compared to the same period the previous year. In June, sales dropped another 39%. Tesla’s first-half sales were down 44% in Europe, per the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).

That trend followed into the second half of 2025 across the continent, including the United Kingdom, where registrations dropped by more than 29% in December.

The year 2025 was the second consecutive year of declining Tesla sales in Europe. Last year, they fell 27%, despite the company introducing newer, cheaper versions of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 vehicles.

Tesla’s market share in the EU, Britain, and the European Free Trade Association fell to 0.8% in January, well below its 1.8% market share in 2025, 2.5% in 2024, and 2.9% the year before that.

Rivian and Lucid can operate like Tesla after new legislative win

Tony Owusu — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:17:00 GMT

Tesla has always occupied a special place in the U.S. automotive landscape as one of the few original equipment manufacturers that does not have to adhere to state dealership franchise laws that have been in place for decades, but now rivals EV Rivian and Lucid are getting the same treatment in at least one state.

The traditional dealership model forces consumers to visit showrooms where a third party acts as a middleman in the sale of the vehicle to them.

"By bypassing the dealership, Tesla offers customers a more transparent buying experience with set prices and minimal negotiations," according to experts at Jupiter Chevrolet. "The company has turned its online platform into a one-stop shop where consumers can browse models, configure their vehicles, and make purchases, all from the comfort of their home."

Car dealerships started convincing states to enact franchise laws in the 1930s, according to The Week. But from the 30s to the 50s, as laws were put on the books, GM, Chrysler, and Ford came to dominate sales while dealerships remained more like mom-and-pop operations.

More EV news

So the auto dealerships, through the National Automobile Dealer Association (NADA), successfully began lobbying to force OEMs into the dealership model. Since then, dealerships have grown from mom and pop to the top 10 dealership groups having combined annual revenues around $10 billion, "more than any car company," Daniel Crane wrote at the Cato Institute in 2021.

But Tesla has enjoyed its direct-to-consumer exemption since entering the market in 2013, and it has used lobbying and lawsuits against states to force them to change their dealership laws.

Tesla testified to the Federal Trade Commission that its status as an EV OEM meant it could not successfully use the dealership model. In 2014, NADA "launched a state-by-state battle" to protect its interests, to varying degrees of success.

Today, about half of the states have eased their restrictions on direct EV sales, according to Cato. In contrast, others like Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and others maintain direct sales bans.

Earlier this month, Washington state passed a bill that will allow Tesla rivals Rivian and Lucid to enjoy the same advantages Tesla does in the state and sell vehicles directly to consumers.

Photo by Bloomberg on Getty Images

Washington state passes bill allowing Rivian and Lucid to sell directly to consumers

Washington Governor Bob Ferguson has until April 4 to sign Senate Bill 6354 into law, granting EV OEMs the right to sell cars directly to consumers, circumventing the dealership model.

The bill had overwhelming bipartisan support, with the state House voting 84 to 9 in favor, and the Senate voting 47 to 2 the same way. Now, companies like Rivian and Lucid, and any future company meeting the criteria, can enjoy the same narrow exemption Tesla has operated under in the state since 2014.

Tesla has been the only EV maker permitted to sell directly in the state this whole time. Now, the company will have a bit more competition, and according to reports, Rivian used a different lobbying playbook than Tesla did.

"Previous direct sales victories came through slow legislative advocacy or executive action, according to Good Car Bad Car. "Rivian’s approach weaponized direct democracy, forcing an outcome that years of traditional lobbying had failed to deliver."

Rivian reportedly spent $4.6 million to file the ballot initiative, which is a governor's signature away from becoming law in the state. The initiative garnered enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

"Rivian’s $4.6 million essentially bought a seat at the negotiating table that no amount of traditional lobbying could have secured," Good Car Bad Car said. "The playbook is replicable in any state with a citizen initiative process, and Rivian has signaled it is willing to use the same approach elsewhere as R2 deliveries ramp later this year."

This is a serious challenge to dealerships' market dominance, but a great sign for Rivian (and Lucid) as it looks to become a viable alternative for EV fans who don't want to buy a Tesla.

JPMorgan analysts back Rivian deal with Uber

On March 19, Rivian and Uber announced a partnership in which Uber will invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian and deploy as many as 50,000 autonomous R2 vehicles on its ride-hailing platform.

The vehicle’s autonomous rides are expected to launch in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, with plans to expand to as many as 25 cities across North America and Europe by 2031. If everything goes to plan, the deal also gives the companies the option to negotiate the purchase of up to 40,000 more autonomous Rivian R2s beginning in 2030.

JPMorgan analysts gave their seal of approval to Uber’s $1.25 billion investment in Rivian, saying that the deal to supply the ride-hailing company with tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles in two years was promising.

While the firm maintained its “underweight” rating and $9 price target on Tesla’s main domestic rival, it says the deal helps alleviate some of Rivian’s excessive cash burn, as the electric vehicle maker continues to report “persistently large” operating losses and free cash outflows.

That extra cash will come in handy as Rivian navigates what analysts describe as a “seemingly increasingly structurally unprofitable” EV market, according to TipRanks.

In the fourth quarter, Rivian reported an adjusted loss of 54 cents per share on revenue of $1.29 billion. For the first time in 2025, Rivian closed out the full year with an annual gross profit of $144 million, thanks to an 8% increase in revenue to about $5.4 billion.

But much of that profit came from Rivian’s software and services segment, as its automotive business lost $432 million last year.

So increasing the physical presence of its vehicles on the road is paramount for the company, and its legislative victory in Washington could help pave the way for that growth.

HSBC flags alarming risk for Tesla stock investors

Mwangi Enos — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:47:00 GMT

Tesla Inc. (TSLA) has been one of the market’s most volatile and closely watched names over the past year.

Incorporated in July 2003, the American multinational automotive company headquartered in Austin, Texas, has delivered strong long-term gains. What has helped it?

It’s optimism around artificial intelligence, robotaxis, and autonomous driving. But beneath the surface, cracks are starting to form. A new warning from one major Wall Street bank is sounding the alarm and raising a more serious question.

Could the stock be heading for a much deeper drop?

Shares are trading around $362 as of this writing, and are already down 19% year-to-date as per Yahoo Finance. Yet even after that pullback, HSBC believes the decline may not be over.

In fact, the bank’s lead analyst sees a scenario in which Tesla stock could fall by more than 60%. As much as 65%. So what’s driving that bold call? And again, should you be worried if you have Tesla in your portfolio?

HSBC warns Tesla stock could drop to $131

HSBC analyst Michael Tyndall has reiterated a “reduce” rating on Tesla, with a $131 price target. Yes, you read it right. That's far below current levels.

That implies a potential drop of roughly 63% from where the stock is recently trading.

The reasoning? It comes down to valuation pressure and slowing momentum in Tesla’s core business.

While bullish investors have focused on future opportunities like robotaxis and humanoid robotics, HSBC argues the core electric vehicle (EV) segment still matters most. And that’s where cracks are starting to show.

Vehicle deliveries declined in 2025, while overall revenue slipped about 3% year-over-year. Production also decreased 5.5% year over year.

If that trend continues, it could weigh heavily on the stock.

So the big question becomes. Can Tesla’s future bets outweigh weakness in its main business?

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Tesla’s EV business faces global pressure and rising competition

Tesla’s challenges aren’t happening in a vacuum. The global EV market is shifting. And the shift is not necessarily in Tesla’s favor.

HSBC notes that EV demand is becoming more regionalized, with consumers in markets like China and Europe increasingly favoring local brands.

That shift is already showing up in the numbers.

China-based rival BYD has surpassed Tesla in annual EV sales
Tesla delivered about 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, trailing BYD’s 2.26 million
European sales have weakened sharply in key markets

Tesla has also not launched a new vehicle since the Cybertruck in 2023

The company hasn’t launched a new mass-market vehicle since the Cybertruck in 2023. Instead, it has focused on refreshing existing models and building out future technologies.

Meanwhile, competition is heating up. That's especially from lower-cost, high-tech EV makers.

More Tesla:

There are also policy headwinds. The expiration of key U.S. EV tax credits has changed the economics of buying electric vehicles, leading to softer demand across the industry.

Looking at sales, Tesla's sales have plummeted in Europe amid backlash over CEO Musk's endorsement of the far-right German party AfD. As per Reuters, December registrations dropped 66% year-over-year in France and 44% in Spain.

Is Tesla really still a growth story or entering a more mature phase?

Tesla’s long-term growth bets keep investors divided

Despite the near-term concerns, Tesla’s long-term story remains intact. At least for some investors.

The company is pushing aggressively into areas like:

Autonomous driving and robotaxis
Artificial intelligence and robotics (Optimus)
Energy storage and grid-scale solutions

These initiatives are a big reason why Tesla still commands a premium valuation.

But HSBC argues that relying too heavily on future opportunities without stronger execution in the core EV business could be risky.

Tesla sales also fell for the second year in a row

Its recent financial performance highlights that tension. Tesla released its latest quarterly sales figures, and they were worse than Wall Street expected.

Key Q4 2025 metrics included;

Revenue: $24.9 billion (down 3% year-over-year)
Deliveries: 418,227 vehicles (down 15.6%)
Production: 434,358 vehicles (down 5.5%)

As per CNBC, Wall Street expected 426,000 deliveries for the quarter. Those annual sales declined for the second consecutive year. And that’s where the Chinese rival BYD surpassed Tesla for the first time in annual sales of battery-electric vehicles.

There were bright spots, though.

Energy storage deployments hit a record 14.2 GWh
Energy revenue grew 26.6% year-over-year

So, what should you watch next for in Tesla?

Looking ahead, Tesla’s trajectory will likely depend on a few critical factors:

Whether vehicle demand stabilizes in key markets
Progress on new products and autonomous technology
Competitive pressure from global EV rivals
Margin recovery as pricing and costs evolve

Well, looking at it, HSBC’s call may seem extreme. But it points to a growing concern that warrants further assessment.

Elon Musk's Terafab bet: what it means for Tesla investors

Hillary Remy — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 19:01:45 GMT

Elon Musk took the stage in Austin on March 21 to officially launch Terafab, a joint venture between Tesla (TSLA), SpaceX, and xAI that he called "the most epic chip building exercise in history by far."

The ambition is genuine. So is the risk.

Investors need to understand both before drawing conclusions about what this means for the stock.

Terafab is Tesla's plan to manufacture its own AI chips at scale within the United States. The goal is to end its dependence on external suppliers such as TSMC and Samsung for the silicon that powers its self-driving systems, Cybercab Robotaxis, and Optimus humanoid robots.

The facility will be built near Austin's Giga Texas campus and bring logic processing, memory production, and advanced packaging under one roof. This is a level of vertical integration almost no private company outside Taiwan and South Korea has attempted.

Why Musk says the Terafab chipmaking facility must be built

The strategic logic is straightforward. Musk first flagged the problem on Tesla's January 2026 earnings call. He told investors that even in a best-case scenario for chip supply from existing partners, it still would not be enough to meet Tesla's needs within three to four years.

With millions of Optimus robots and Cybercab fleets on the roadmap, the volumes required exceed what any external foundry is prepared to commit to on Tesla's timeline.

"When I look ahead and say what's the limiting factor for Tesla growth, if you go three or four years out, I think it actually is chip production," Musk said. Building a domestic fab, he argued, is the only way around that ceiling.

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The facility targets 2-nanometer process technology, the most advanced node currently in commercial production. Tesla's AI5 chip is among the first products Terafab is designed to produce. Small-batch production is expected in 2026, with volume production projected for 2027.

The initial target is 100,000 wafer starts per month, with an eventual ambition to scale toward one million. Musk said the project aims to produce enough computing power to support 100 to 200 gigawatts of AI infrastructure on Earth, and ultimately a terawatt in space.

Importantly, Musk was explicit that Tesla will continue buying Nvidia chips in the meantime. Terafab is a long-horizon solution, not an overnight pivot.

Elon Musk wants to end its dependence on external suppliers such as TSMC and Samsung for chips that power its Optimus humanoid robots and other products.

Shutterstock

What the Terafab price tag actually looks like

The cost estimate is $20 to $25 billion for the Terafab facility itself. That is on top of Tesla's existing 2026 capital expenditure guidance of more than $20 billion, and Tesla's CFO acknowledged on the January earnings call that the full Terafab cost is not yet incorporated into that figure.

For context, Samsung's Taylor fab cost roughly $17 billion. TSMC's largest facilities cost $15 to $20 billion each and handle about 100,000 wafer starts per month. Terafab's starting target matches that scale, but the ambition is far larger.

Tesla ended 2025 with $44 billion in cash. Its 2025 revenue declined 3% to $94.8 billion, with automotive revenue down 10% to $69.5 billion. Free cash flow last year was $6.2 billion on $8.5 billion in capex.

The company is now committing to more than double that capex level while simultaneously funding a multi-decade semiconductor project. That is a significant financial stretch, and Electrek has noted that Tesla's own 10-K filing acknowledges the company may need to raise additional capital.

How Wall Street is reading the Terafab news

The market reaction on the day of the announcement was measured. TSLA rose 0.6% when Musk confirmed the March 21 launch date. The broader analyst consensus sits at hold, with a mean price target of around $408, implying modest upside from current levels.

Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco, who carries a hold rating with a $415 price target on the stock, called Terafab a "Herculean task" and estimated the full cost could run $35 to $40 billion. He cautioned that even under an optimistic scenario, the facility would not actually produce chips until 2028.

The bull and bear case, in plain terms

Bull case: If Tesla executes, it owns the full stack from chip to vehicle to robot. No supplier can hold it hostage on pricing or allocation. The margins on internally manufactured silicon are structurally higher than purchasing from third parties, and Terafab positions Tesla as an AI infrastructure company, not just an automaker.
Bear case: Building a leading-edge fab involves more than 2,000 individual processes, specialized equipment that is globally scarce, and engineering talent that TSMC and Samsung have spent decades accumulating. Tesla has a documented history of ambitious timelines that slip. The capital demands are enormous at a time when the core auto business is under pressure. Every dollar committed to Terafab is a dollar not returning to shareholders.

What Tesla investors should watch

Terafab is a decade-long bet, not a near-term catalyst. The stock will not move on Terafab milestones the way it moves on delivery numbers or FSD updates.

What matters over the next 12 to 18 months is straightforward. Does Tesla break ground on a confirmed site? Does it commit to a specific process partner for initial production? Does it maintain the cash position needed to fund the project without a dilutive equity raise?

Musk has framed Terafab as existential, the only path to the chip volumes his AI and robotics ambitions require. That framing may be correct.

But as Bloomberg noted, Musk has no background in semiconductor production and a history of promising results on compressed timescales. So while the idea is sound, the execution is the entire question.

UBS has a message for Tesla stock investors

Hillary Remy — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 21:37:00 GMT

Tesla (TSLA) is no longer a car company in the eyes of Wall Street. Investors have moved on, fixating instead on Robotaxi timelines, Optimus robots, and full self-driving milestones.

The problem, according to UBS, is that the car business still has to work. And right now, it is not working well enough.

UBS analyst Joseph Spak cut his estimate for first-quarter 2026 deliveries to 345,000 vehicles, per Tipranks, down 18% from the 421,000 Tesla delivered in the fourth quarter of 2025 and 7% below the Visible Alpha consensus of 371,000.

The firm maintains its sell rating and $352 price target on TSLA. With shares closing at $380.30 on March 19, that target implies roughly 8% additional downside. The stock is already down 17% year to date.

The core message is blunt: Sentiment and AI narratives drive TSLA's price, but the auto business funds everything else. That dynamic is now under pressure from multiple directions.

Tesla's delivery problem

Spak's revised estimate of 345,000 units represents only 2% year-over-year growth, a sharp deceleration for a company whose investors expect an AI-era transformation. His previous Q1 estimate was 360,000. The downward revision reflects weakness across Tesla's three biggest markets.

U.S. EV demand has softened, and Tesla is winding down production of the higher-margin Model S and Model X. Early data for January and February show roughly 78,600 domestic deliveries, down 6% from the same period a year ago.

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In Europe, deliveries across the top eight markets fell approximately 4% year over year in the first two months of the quarter, with sharp declines in the U.K. and the Netherlands partially offset by gains in Germany and France. In China, domestic retail deliveries fell 6% year over year even as exports surged, propped up in part by a zero-interest financing promotion Tesla extended through March 31.

Spak notes that deliveries could track slightly below even his revised estimate, unless Tesla stages a meaningful end-of-quarter push, which the company has done before.

Why Tesla's auto business still matters

This is the tension at the heart of the UBS note, and it is the question every TSLA investor needs to sit with. The stock trades on AI ambition. But the cash that funds the Robotaxi program, the Optimus humanoid robot, the Dojo supercomputer, and the $20 billion capital expenditure budget for 2026 comes almost entirely from selling cars.

As Spak writes, it is primarily the auto business that funds Tesla's cash flow and hence its investment for growth. Weaker deliveries do not just disappoint on a headline number. They compress the margins and cash flow that keep the broader growth engine running.

Tesla's gross margins already slipped to 16.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025 amid ongoing price competition, particularly from Chinese rivals including BYD.

The energy storage segment offers some relief. Spak projects 15.1 gigawatt-hours of deployment in Q1, up 45% year over year, driven by surging Megapack demand from grid upgrades and AI data centers.

But vehicles still account for the overwhelming majority of operating cash flow. The energy business is growing fast. It is not yet large enough to fill the gap if auto stumbles.

Investors are now questioning whether Tesla's camera-only approach to self-driving, which relies on vision rather than lidar or radar, is actually a cost and scalability advantage.

VCG/Getty Images

The Robotaxi credibility problem

UBS is not just concerned about deliveries. The note flags something more structural: growing investor skepticism that Tesla can sustain a meaningful competitive advantage in autonomous driving.

Spak notes that recent investor feedback suggests updates around Robotaxi and Optimus have been slower and more subdued than anticipated. At the same time, competition in the autonomous vehicle space has intensified.

Waymo is now completing more than 400,000 paid rides per week, scaling commercial operations in multiple U.S. cities. Nvidia's recent Alpamayo autonomous vehicle platform announcement has raised the bar on what the broader ecosystem can offer.

Tesla's camera-only approach to self-driving, which relies on vision rather than lidar or radar, was long framed as a cost and scalability advantage. That framing is now being questioned.

The concern UBS hears from investors is that Tesla may not sustainably differentiate in the robotaxi market as more capable and better-funded competitors close the gap.

What UBS says investors should watch

Q1 delivery results, due April 2, which will set the tone heading into earnings
First-quarter earnings on April 28, where margin trends will be closely scrutinized
Any concrete Robotaxi production or deployment update beyond prototype demonstrations
Progress on FSD, particularly given an intensifying NHTSA probe into how the system performs in reduced visibility

What this means for TSLA investors

UBS is not alone in its caution. The broader analyst community sits at a hold consensus on Tesla, with 13 buy ratings, 11 holds, and seven sells. The average price target of $399.25 implies only modest upside from current levels.

The bull case for TSLA has always rested on the idea that Tesla is not really an automaker but a technology platform with cars as its current revenue base. That argument holds if the AI ventures deliver.

It becomes harder to sustain if delivery volumes keep slipping, margins stay compressed, and the Robotaxi timeline keeps getting pushed while competitors build real-world scale.

Spak's note does not say the bull case is dead. It says the auto business cannot be ignored while investors wait for the AI story to play out. Tesla needs both to work.

Right now, one of them is not.

Consumer Reports names 5 popular EVs with the worst range

Tony Owusu — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 13:47:00 GMT

Every online shopper has faced the Amazon conundrum.

After 10 minutes of scrolling, you find the perfect item that meets all of your needs and looks amazing. You even check the reviews to ensure the community is satisfied with their purchase.

But when you receive the item, it somehow just doesn't look like it did online and doesn't perform the way you expected (damn those fake reviews).

As frustrating as that situation is for an off-brand video game controller or a $45 stainless steel cooking pan, one can imagine how frustrating it must be to spend tens of thousands on an electric vehicle when its driving range is more than 50 miles lower per charge than advertised.

The federal government heavily regulates motor vehicle fuel efficiency standards. For electric vehicles, the Environmental Protection Agency range is the official estimate of an EVs driving distance on a single charge. The EPA estimates that a gallon of gasoline has the energy equivalent of 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

In other words, a plug-in that uses 33.7 kilowatt-hours to drive 100 miles will use the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. Or at least that is supposed to be the standard.

But according to a new Consumer Reports study, many EVs perform much worse on the highway than their advertised EPA ranges would suggest.

The EPA says its tests take charging losses into consideration as a small amount of energy is lost through energy conversion and heat. But some of the real-world results in the Consumer Reports study can't be explained away by spillage anyway.

But Alex Knizek, director of auto test development at Consumer Reports, says the discrepancy isn't unexpected since the EPA conducts its tests in a laboratory and its ratings represent a mix of highway and city driving.

Still, he recognized that this presents an unfair conundrum for car buyers.

"When comparing cars, buyers need to know what range they are getting for their money," says Knizek. "If you run out of charge on the highway, you may need to be towed, which could be both inconvenient and costly."

EV ranges aren't always equal to what the company claims.

Platt/Getty Images

What is Consumer Reports?

Founded in 1936 by a group of workers fired from a product-testing firm called Consumers’ Research, Consumer Reports is a multifaceted nonprofit organization that aims to educate consumers about products and help them make informed purchasing decisions.

It does this by purchasing and testing products directly, administering detailed surveys to its members about the products they own and use, and investigating the veracity of manufacturers’ claims.

Consumer Reports at a glance

Founded: 1936 (as Consumers Union by former employees of Consumers’ Research, fired after they attempted to unionize)
Headquartered: Yonkers, NY
Leadership: Marta Tellado, president and CEO
Employees: Approx. 500 to 600
Members: At least 6 million
Mission statement: “Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works side by side with consumers for truth, transparency, and fairness in the marketplace.”

Consumer Reports’ slogan, “Smarter choices for a better world,” captures the organization’s purpose. CR aims to educate and inform the public by providing objective information about popular products, helping consumers make “smarter choices” when purchasing major items.

Consumer Reports calls the EPA's miles-per-gallon-equivalent calculations "outdated" and its methods unrealistic.

More from Consumer Reports

"That’s why we purchase our vehicles like a consumer would and drive them at highway speeds like a consumer would on a road trip," said Jake Fisher, senior director of CR's Auto Test Center.

For this report, Consumer Reports put the EVs through a highway-speed range test, driving fully charged vehicles at a steady speed of 70 mph until they ran out of charge. Even if the vehicle's display indicated zero miles of range, the testers didn't stop driving until the car came to a stop.

Consumer Reports EVs that underperform their EPA range

Chevrolet Silverado EV

Model: 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST, AWD, 24-inch wheels
EPA Range: 493 miles
Consumer Reports Highway Range: 472 miles (21-mile difference)

Tesla Model S

Model: 2021 Tesla Model S Long Range, AWD, 19-inch wheels
EPA Range: 410 miles
Consumer Reports Highway Range: 366 miles (44-mile difference)

Rivian R1s

Model: 2025 Rivian R1s Dual Max, AWD, 22-inch wheels
EPA Range: 410
Consumer Reports Highway Range:358 (52-mile difference)

Lucid Air

Model: 2023 Lucid Air Touring, AWD, 20-inch wheels
EPA Range: 396 miles
Consumer Reports Highway Range: 344 (52-mile difference)

Ford F-150 Lightning

Model: 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range, AWD, 20-inch wheels
EPA Range: 320 miles
Consumer Reports Highway Range: 270 miles (50-mile difference)

Tesla FSD makes terrifying mistake in viral video

Tony Owusu — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:47:00 GMT

Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised) is back in the spotlight this week after yet another viral video shows a vehicle using the assisted driving tech doing something a human driver would probably never do under normal circumstances.

On Monday, March 9, a video circulated of a Tesla with FSD engaged driving through a railroad crossing that had deployed its guard arms well before the Tesla arrived. The vehicle drove through the first guard arm at about 20 mph, slowed down on the tracks, and then drove through the second arm as the train approached.

Tesla global deliveries by year

2025: 1.22 million
2024: 1.79 million
2023: 1.81 million
2022: 1.37 million
2021: 936K
2020: 499K
2019: 367K
Source: Statista

It's not the first time Tesla FSD has gone viral for the wrong reason.

Last September, X user @HinrichsZane shared a video of his Model S traveling in the left lane with FSD engaged, going about 50 mph. Anticipating the ambulance’s approach, he filmed the driver’s side mirror to see how his Model S would react.

It didn't react well, seemingly not recognizing the ambulance had the right of way. "I let FSD go as long as I could before I took over and pulled over. Not a hater. FSD is amazing but nowhere near foolproof," he said.

SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers) considers advanced driver assistance systems, such as GM Super Cruise and Tesla Full Self-Driving, to be Level 2 automation, which requires the driver to remain engaged.

Anything Level 3 and above is considered truly “autonomous.” This means no human intervention is required when the system activates features such as lane assist and automatic braking.

But that's not what Tesla FSD is designed to do, and Monday's viral video shows exactly why.

A recent incident involving Tesla Full-Self-Driving at a railroad crossing raises serious concerns.

Leong/Washington Post via Getty Images

Tesla FSD ignores the railroad crossing, drives through the barrier

On Monday, Laushi Liu's dashcam footage of the railroad incident spread across social media from his Threads account.

Liu, with FSD enabled, makes a left turn and cruises towards the railroad crossing in West Covina, Calif., a few hundred feet ahead.

But instead of slowing down as the railroad track barriers deploy, the car cruises along at 25 mph and crashes through the barrier. It crawls to an almost-stop on the tracks before driving through the second barrier to safety.

This isn't the first time a Tesla has failed to stop at a railroad crossing.

Last year, an NBC News investigation found that Tesla's FSD often fails to stop at train crossings. The news service found 40 instances online since 2023 in which FSD mishandled railroad crossings, including failing to stop.

NBC interviewed six Tesla drivers who had the same complaint, four of whom provided videos.

The National Highway Traffic Administration told NBC that it has been "in communication" with Tesla about the issue.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Autonomous vehicles are better than human drivers at some things, an insurance analyst says

Waymo, which is the most active of the U.S robotaxi options, says that compared to those with human drivers, its autonomous vehicles have been involved in 90% fewer crashes resulting in serious injuries.

Auto insurance companies have a lot at stake with this new technology. Autonomous vehicles could change insurance pricing at the most minute level. The question is: Will it raise rates or lower them?

Right now, the industry is in a wait-and-see pattern.

“I don’t think they have the data yet to make that kind of assessment,” David Kidd, vice president for vehicle research at the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, told Bloomberg when asked which drivers are more likely to crash: autonomous or human.

“Most insurers are extremely conservative, and they rely on historical data to assess risk accurately. There just isn’t enough information available yet.”

Trent Victor, Waymo’s director of safety research and best practices, recently gave an interview saying much of the same. “There is not yet sufficient mileage to make statistical conclusions about fatal crashes alone,” he said.

“As we accumulate more mileage, it will become possible to make statistically significant conclusions on other subsets of data, including fatal crashes as its own category.”

Waymo vehicles have driven approximately 127 million miles across the fleet and have been involved in at least two fatal crashes, MSN reported. However, the autonomous vehicle was not directly found responsible for either of them. Human drivers average about 123 million car miles traveled for every fatality, according to the IIHS.

So how can an AV company prove to IIHS that its vehicles are safer than human drivers?

“It would depend upon the use case,” according to Kidd.

“If a trucking company operates AVs on interstates between two hubs, and they’re able to do that with very infrequent crashes compared to truck drivers, then I would say they provide a substantial safety improvement in that environment. But I wouldn’t generalize to say that means automation is safer across the board. Those assessments need to be done on a case-by-case basis.”

Tesla Robotaxi prices just jumped. Here is what riders pay now

Hillary Remy — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 18:03:00 GMT

If you have been taking short hops in a Tesla (TSLA) Robotaxi around Austin, your next ride is going to cost more. Noticeably more.

On March 7, Tesla quietly updated its Robotaxi pricing for the first time in over six months. the base fare tripled, jumping from $1 to $3.25. The per-mile rate stays the same at $1. But for short rides, the difference is immediate and significant.

A 2-mile trip that used to cost $3 now runs $5.25. A 5-mile ride goes from $6 to $8.25. The longer the trip, the less the hike hurts. But for quick neighborhood runs, the formula has fundamentally changed.

How Tesla's pricing has evolved since launch

The Robotaxi service launched in Austin on June 22, 2025 with a flat $4.20 fare. The number was a deliberate nod to Elon Musk's well-known affinity for the figure. A few weeks later, jumped to $6.90 as Tesla expanded the service's geofenced area into downtown Austin, the University of Texas campus and surrounding neighborhoods. Again, not a coincidence on the number.

In July 2025, Tesla moved away from flat fares entirely. App version 25.7.10 introduced a distance-based model: $1 base fare plus $1 per mile. That structure held for six months without adjustment.

More Tesla:

The March 7 update is the first change since October 2025. It keeps the per-mile rate intact but triples the entry cost.

What rides cost before and after the March 7 update

2 miles: $3 before, $5.25 now (up 75%)
3 miles: $4 before, $6.25 now (up 56%)
5 miles: $6 before, $8.25 now (up 38%)
10 miles: $11 before, $13.25 now (up 20%)

Why short rides are taking the biggest hit

The math is straightforward. When the base fare was $1, a 2-mile ride cost $3. The base fare was a minor part of the total. Now that it is $3.25, it dominates the cost of any trip under three miles.

That appears to be deliberate. According to TeslaNorth, Tesla is using the base fare increase to manage demand and reduce wait times, which have recently averaged between 10 and 15 minutes during peak hours. By making very short rides less attractive, Tesla steers the fleet toward longer, more efficient trips.

The Austin pilot currently operates around 89 Model Y vehicles, most of which still carry safety monitors. As fleet size grows, the pricing structure is being calibrated for efficiency, not just rider acquisition.

How Tesla still compares to Waymo

Even at the new prices, Tesla remains cheaper than Waymo in head-to-head comparisons.

A January 2026 TechCrunch report citing Obi market data found that Waymo rides in the San Francisco Bay Area averaged $19.69, while Uber came in at $17.47. Tesla, despite not yet operating commercially in California, was tracking far below both based on its Austin pricing.

Goessman/Bloomberg via Getty Images

At $8.25 for a 5-mile Austin trip, Tesla is pricing well below what Bay Area riders pay for a comparable Waymo ride. That gap remains a key part of Tesla's pitch as it prepares for broader expansion.

Wait times tell a different story. Tesla's average is around 12 to 15 minutes. Waymo averaged 5.74 minutes in the same Obi survey. As Tesla scales its fleet, that convenience gap will be the next metric to watch.

What comes next for Tesla Robotaxi

The pricing change lands at a pivotal moment for the service. Tesla is preparing to expand beyond Austin. Phoenix, Miami and Las Vegas are all targeted for launch later in 2026. A Bay Area rollout is also in planning, though California regulations require a different operational setup than Texas.

On the hardware side, Cybercab production is slated to begin at Giga Texas in April 2026. The two-seat dedicated robotaxi, expected to be priced under $30,000, would allow Tesla to operate vehicles designed entirely around driverless ride-hailing rather than retrofitting consumer Model Y units.

There is also a regulatory dimension. Tesla submitted key Full Self-Driving performance data to the NHTSA on March 9. The agency has been probing roughly 80 incidents involving FSD-activated vehicles since October 2025. The regulator's response will have a direct bearing on how quickly Tesla can expand its driverless operations outside Texas.

For now, riders in Austin are adjusting to a new pricing reality. The era of $3 short-hop robotaxi rides is over. Whether the new structure drives riders away or simply shifts behavior toward longer trips is what Tesla's data team will be watching closely over the coming weeks.

Tesla may have just changed everything for Samsung

Faizan Farooque — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:07:00 GMT

Tesla (TSLA) and Samsung Electronics (SSNLF) are making waves again, this time thanks to the rumor mill. The story that's brewing may have major implications for both Wall Street and the man on the street.

Tesla, if the rumors are true, wants Samsung to produce many more AI6 wafers than initially anticipated, SamMobile reports. This could raise the value of a deal that was already crucial to Samsung's plans to develop artificial intelligence chips in Texas.

It's music to the ears of those who want Samsung Electronics' foundry business to flourish, eventually becoming an important linchpin in the tech giant's business.

The impact of Tesla's decision to have Samsung produce significantly more AI6 wafers than originally planned may also be felt beyond increasing sales from a single client.

It might bolster the argument that investors are finally receiving the anchor demand for Samsung's long-delayed chip project in Taylor, Texas.

However, it's important to remember that the numbers have not been publicly verified by either Samsung or Tesla.

Samsung's initial Tesla chip deal was valued at $16.5 billion through the end of 2033 and was anticipated to help the company's contract chip division, which was losing money.

Additionally, researchers calculated that Samsung's foundry losses in the first half of 2025 exceeded 5 trillion won (about $3.4 billion), according to Reuters.

Why Samsung's foundry business is affected by Tesla's AI6 order

When Samsung secured the Tesla agreement last year, it wasn't looking for another jaw-dropping headline to move the markets.

Instead, it needed evidence that large clients were still prepared to entrust it with sophisticated production tasks.

It's why Tesla's rumored interest in additional Samsung AI6 wafers is so important.

In terms of both scale and customer momentum, Samsung's foundry sector has lagged behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. In July 2025, Reuters reported that TSMC had captured about 67% of the worldwide foundry market, while Samsung held about 8%.

Tesla may be handing Samsung a blockbuster chip boost.

Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Samsung might benefit from a larger Tesla involvement in several ways.

Usage at the Taylor, Texas, plant will increase, which is essential to Samsung's efforts to expand in the United States.
If volume under the contract is finalized, the entire value of the deal can well ahead surpass the initial $16.5 billion agreement.
Given that Samsung now produces Tesla's other automotive AI processors, it might strengthen an already-existing connection rather than forge a new one.

The final point is crucial.

Investors often see a customer's return for further capacity as confirmation of a long-term relationship. It will create a much-needed impression in the minds of stockholders, implying Tesla views Samsung as more than just a short-term supplier in this instance.

Samsung's foundry still needs to establish itself

Samsung's semiconductor business appears to be doing better overall than it did when the Tesla deal first surfaced, as evidenced by recent increases in production capacity and improvements in technology that enhance its competitiveness in the market.

Samsung's operating profit increased to 20.1 trillion won, and fourth-quarter revenue hit a record 93.8 trillion won. Its Device Solutions chip division reported 44.0 trillion won in revenue and 16.4 trillion won in operating profit.

More Tesla:

That's the kind of good news you can't ignore.

But here's the less convenient element: Samsung claimed that while high customer demand boosted foundry revenue, preliminary expenses restrained the increase in earnings. Put differently, the semiconductor industry's memory segment is making a much faster comeback than the foundry.

The Tesla viewpoint is therefore far more convincing.

It's not really about Samsung "making more money" under the thesis. It concerns whether one of the company's less successful divisions is at last gaining the scale, recognition, and client support necessary to turn the corner.

That was made evident in Reuters' July report, which characterized Tesla's initial deal as a boon to Samsung's struggling contract manufacturing division.

Around this scenario, a larger AI race is also taking place.

Customers appreciated Samsung's next-generation HBM4 chips' competitiveness, according to a Jan. 2 Reuters story. Then, as Samsung attempted to catch up with competitors in AI memory, Reuters reported in February that the company began shipping its most recent HBM4 chips to clients.

Thus, it is not just Tesla that's involved in the larger story.

Samsung is attempting to restore trust in multiple areas of the AI chip industry simultaneously, including advanced nodes, memory, and U.S.-based production.

Tesla interest in Samsung AI6 wafers is credible amid automaker's spending spree

Tesla's perspective is also important.

Tesla intends to spend more than $20 billion in 2026 as it makes more aggressive investments in AI-heavy ventures such as battery capacity, Optimus robots, and Cybercab production, Reuters reported.

Such a spending binge would be consistent with Tesla's desire to lock in additional future chip capacity.

Furthermore, it is not anticipated that the AI6 chip will be a specialized component.

Industry coverage on the Samsung-Tesla deal links AI6 to Tesla's internal AI infrastructure, humanoid robots, and self-driving goals. Compared to a single vehicle launch cycle, that is a far greater opportunity.

The claimed 40,000-wafer figure should not be taken as gospel by investors.

As of right now, the figure doesn't seem to originate from a Samsung filing, a Tesla statement, or a regulatory disclosure, but rather from secondary industry news and social media sourcing.

Nevertheless, the report is noteworthy because it aligns with the overarching ambitions of both businesses. Tesla seems prepared to invest significantly to support its AI roadmap, while Samsung wants to increase the volume of high-value foundry work.

What investors should watch next for Tesla and Samsung

Four things will probably determine the outcome of this story's next chapter.

Verification: Has Samsung or Tesla confirmed a change in wafer volume or contract size?
Taylor timing: Does a higher AI6 commitment imply that Samsung's Texas plant gears up to meet demand?
Foundry profitability: Has Samsung begun to demonstrate improved foundry earnings in addition to revenue growth?
Tesla's AI roadmap: Will Optimus, robotaxis, and AI infrastructure advancements in the future make greater chip orders seem even more likely?

This isn't simply a rumor about wafers if Tesla is actually requesting that much more AI6 capacity from Samsung.

It might be an early indication that Samsung's most significant semiconductor turnaround story is finally gaining traction.

Bank of America revamps Tesla stock price

Tobi Opeyemi Amure — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:33:00 GMT

When a big Wall Street bank flips its view on Tesla, I pay attention.

Bank of America upgraded Tesla shares and resumed coverage with a buy‑equivalent rating while boosting its price target to $460, calling the company the “clear leader” in autonomous driving, CNBC reported.

The analysts argued that Tesla’s advances in self‑driving and Robotaxi services could power the next phase of growth on top of its core electric‑vehicle business.

In Bank of America’s view, what matters now isn't quarterly delivery noise as much as the value Tesla can squeeze from its software stack, data advantage, and Robotaxi rollout over the next few years, according to CNBC’s write‑up.

The call effectively reframes Tesla as a hybrid of automaker and AI platform, with Bank of America highlighting autonomy and robotics as key drivers of its sum‑of‑the‑parts valuation.

I see this move as a reset after the bank’s more cautious stance in 2025, when it warned that Tesla’s valuation looked stretched, even as it raised its target price, as seen in TheStreet's coverage.

Bank of America believes Tesla’s advances in self‑driving and Robotaxi services could power its next phase of growth.

uller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Why autonomy sits at the center of Bank of America's Tesla upgrade

Bank of America didn’t revamp its view on Tesla because it suddenly fell in love with Model 3 and Model Y unit sales.

The analysts centered their upgrade on Tesla’s leadership in autonomous driving technology and its growing Robotaxi network, which began paid operations in Austin in 2025 and is expanding into more U.S. cities, the CNBC report said.

Tesla started its first Robotaxi service in Austin on June 22, 2025, and has since been rolling out driverless service more broadly, Nasdaq wrote in a February 2026 analysis.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Elon Musk told attendees that Tesla’s Robotaxis would be “very, very widespread” in the United States by the end of 2026, CNBC reported. Musk said Tesla had already launched Robotaxi service in several cities and framed autonomy as a central piece of the company’s long‑term strategy.

Other Wall Street voices have been pushing a similar thesis.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has argued that Tesla’s AI and autonomous driving efforts could be worth nearly 1 trillion dollars on their own, separate from its vehicle business, Yahoo Finance reported. Ives also pointed to a Bank of America sum‑of‑the‑parts framework that attributed nearly 45 percent of Tesla’s value to Robotaxis, according to that same report.

From my perspective, Bank of America is now explicitly siding with that autonomy‑first camp and telling its clients that the “real story” in the stock is software and Robotaxis, not just how many SUVs Tesla ships each quarter.

How this fits into the broader Tesla analyst debate

This call doesn’t land in a vacuum. Tesla is one of the most hotly debated names on Wall Street, and the Bank of America upgrade highlights how wide the spread is between bulls and skeptics.

Forty-one firms now cover Tesla, with 18 rating it a buy, 14 a hold, and nine a sell, and an average 12‑month price target of around $408 per share, MarketBeat data show. That average hides a wide range of views, with some analysts seeing upside toward $600 and others arguing the stock deserves a steep discount.

On the bullish side, a veteran analyst quoted by Yahoo Finance said AI, Robotaxis, and robotics could drive Tesla’s valuation past $2 trillion within the next year if things break right. That same piece noted that firms such as Stifel and Morgan Stanley have pushed their targets higher on the belief that Tesla can dominate autonomy and “AI on wheels” into 2026.

More Tesla:

On the other side, skeptics still see big gaps between Tesla’s promises and reality.

A February 2026 Seeking Alpha article argued that Tesla remains “far from” a true unsupervised Robotaxi service, despite repeated timeline extensions, and that the current share price already bakes in highly optimistic autonomy outcomes.

Tesla's cars are still classified as Level 2 driver assistance, and critics say branding its technology as “Full Self‑Driving” can mislead consumers about what the system can actually do today.

I read Bank of America’s new call as a clear signal that, despite those concerns, at least one major bank believes enough in the data advantage, software progress, and regulatory path to pay up for autonomous upside.

What Tesla's price target boost means if you own or are eyeing the stock

You don’t have to agree with Bank of America, but you do need to understand what you’re buying if you follow this upgrade.

MarketBeat’s consensus shows a “hold” rating overall and a crowded field of bulls and bears, which tells me that Tesla is a classic battleground stock with a lot of expectation already in the price.

At the same time, firsthand developments like the Austin Robotaxi rollout and Musk’s 2026 timeline for widespread U.S. coverage show that autonomy is no longer just a slide in an investor deck, Nasdaq and CNBC both reported.

Here is how I’d think about it as a personal‑finance reader.

If you buy into Bank of America’s call, you’re essentially betting that Tesla’s autonomy and AI platform will justify a higher multiple than a traditional automaker, and that Robotaxi revenue will grow into today’s valuation.
If you’re skeptical, you might see this as a chance to trim or avoid a name where execution risks, regulatory uncertainty, and competition from players such as Waymo and Chinese AV firms could derail the story, as Reuters and TheStreet have both warned in past coverage of the space.
Either way, you want to size any Tesla position so that a sharp swing on an autonomy headline doesn’t upend your broader financial plan.

Personally, I’d treat the Bank of America upgrade as one more data point in a long debate and then build or adjust a position only after asking a simple question: If Robotaxis take longer or earn less than the bulls think, can you still live with what you paid for the stock?

Tesla just made a move no other AI company has tried

Hillary Remy — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:03:00 GMT

Elon Musk made one of his boldest claims yet about Tesla's future on March 4, posting on X that Tesla will be among the companies to develop AGI and will "probably" be the first to achieve it in humanoid form through its Optimus robot program.

The statement instantly grabbed Wall Street's attention. Tesla stock gained more than 3% in the session that followed, as investors weighed what an AGI-capable Optimus robot could mean for a company already carrying a massive premium valuation tied to its AI and robotics ambitions.

But the claim lands against a complicated backdrop. Tesla's core vehicle business has been under real pressure, and Musk has a well-documented history of setting aggressive timelines that slip. Here is what investors and consumers need to understand about this announcement.

What Musk actually said about Tesla and AGI

Artificial general intelligence refers to AI systems that can reason, plan, and learn across different domains the way humans do, rather than excelling at one specific task like driving or generating text. It remains one of the most debated and elusive goals in all of technology.

Musk's post used the phrase "atom-shaping form" to describe where he sees Tesla winning. His argument is that true general intelligence requires a physical body that can interact with and manipulate the real world, not just process text or code.

That is where Tesla claims a unique edge. No other major AI lab has a humanoid robot in production, a large-scale manufacturing infrastructure, or the real-world sensor data that Tesla's fleet of vehicles continuously generates.

The Optimus robot is central to the entire bet

Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot is the physical centerpiece of this AGI vision. The company is converting its Fremont, Calif., facility that previously built the Model S and Model X into an Optimus production line. The long-term target is one million units annually.

More Tech Stocks:

Musk has also said Tesla is building an "Optimus Academy" to train the robot using the same reality-simulation tools that power its Full Self-Driving system. That FSD infrastructure, built on billions of miles of real-world driving data, is the foundation Tesla believes gives it a path to embodied AGI that pure software labs cannot replicate.

What makes Tesla's AGI case different from rivals:

Real-world physical data from millions of vehicles operating across complex environments, not just digital text or synthetic simulations
Optimus robots already performing tasks inside Tesla factories, creating a live feedback loop between the robot's actions and its AI training
In-house AI chip design aimed at on-device intelligence rather than relying solely on cloud compute
Integration with xAI's Grok models, which Musk has positioned as the intelligence layer running inside Optimus

The rivals are not standing still

Tesla is not operating in a vacuum. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly targeted 2027 as the point at which AI could surpass human-level intelligence across domains. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said at the India AI Summit that AGI will feel like ten Industrial Revolutions happening at ten times the speed.

Anthropic, which builds the Claude family of AI models, has emphasized careful safety standards over speed. That measured approach has drawn both praise from researchers and criticism from those who believe the competitive window for AGI leadership is closing fast.

Where the major players stand on AGI timelines:

Elon Musk and Tesla: AGI in humanoid form, targeting 2026 as the pivotal year
OpenAI's Sam Altman: Surpassing human-level intelligence possible by 2027
Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis: Near-term AGI with civilizational-scale consequences
Anthropic: No fixed public timeline, prioritizing safety and alignment first

The skeptics have a real track record to point to

Musk's critics are not short on evidence. He has predicted Tesla would achieve full self-driving capability every year from 2019 through 2025. It never happened. Kalshi's prediction market gives Optimus just a 14.5% chance of being available for consumer sale in 2026.

He predicted AGI would arrive by 2025. When it did not, the timeline shifted to 2026. Earlier this year, Musk declared that "we have entered the Singularity" and that 2026 is the year it arrives. Tesla's robotaxi service, launched in Austin, Texas, still relied on safety monitors inside the vehicles for most of its pilot run.

Photo by SOPA Images on Getty Images

Meanwhile, Tesla's business fundamentals have deteriorated sharply. The company delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, an 8.6% decline from 2024 and the second consecutive year of falling deliveries. Revenue dropped roughly 3%, the first year-over-year decline in Tesla's history. Net income fell 61% in the fourth quarter alone.

What investors are actually pricing in

Despite those results, Tesla's stock has held a sky-high valuation because Wall Street is pricing in the robotics and AGI upside, not the car business. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives named Tesla a top AI play for 2026, saying the "robotics chapter" for the company is just beginning.

ARK Invest has maintained a long-term price target on TSLA that assigns roughly 70% of its valuation to robotics and autonomy rather than electric vehicles. That framing turns every Optimus update and every AGI claim into a direct stock catalyst.

Key milestones investors are watching in 2026:

Optimus Gen 3 reveal, expected in Q1 2026 from the Fremont facility
Cybercab production ramp, which began in low volumes in early 2026
Removal of safety monitors from the Austin robotaxi fleet
xAI's Grok integration into Optimus for real-time voice and reasoning

The core tension for Tesla investors is straightforward: if Musk is even partially right about Optimus and AGI, the current valuation could look conservative in hindsight. If the timelines slip again, as they repeatedly have, the stock's premium will be difficult to defend against the backdrop of a declining car business.

What is clear is that the race for physical AI is real, the competition is intensifying, and Tesla has placed the biggest and most public bet on humanoid robots as the path to general intelligence. Whether that bet pays off, 2026 will be the most telling year yet.

Bank of America names the U.S. auto stocks to own

Tony Owusu — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 13:07:00 GMT

The U.S. automotive market had a wild 2025, thanks to the uncertain climate under President Donald Trump's mercurial tariff policy. Still, analysts at Bank of America believe that at least three U.S. car companies are worth investing in.

Carmakers such as Ford played the change in the U.S. economic policy perfectly. Ford rode dealer incentives, combined with consumer anxiety about tariffs, to become the top-selling brand in the U.S. during the year’s first half. Ford said total sales in the second quarter rose at a rate seven times that of the overall auto industry.

It sold 1.1 million units in the first six months, a 6.6% year-over-year increase.

But Ford wasn’t the only beneficiary. GM increased its U.S. market share above 17%, representing the most substantial presence in the U.S. since 2017, while other brands also saw sales rise.

“Automakers are providing healthy incentives to keep sales flowing. Prices are trending higher, but just as we are seeing in the broader retail markets, there’s sufficient demand and generous incentives out there, and that’s driving the market,” said Cox Automotive Executive Analyst Erin Keating earlier this year.

But that was 2025.

It is a new year, and analysts at Bank of America see a different landscape for automakers in 2026.

Ford said its total sales in the second quarter rose at a rate seven times that of the overall auto industry.

Ford

Bank of America reinstates "buy" ratings on Ford, GM, Tesla

On Wednesday, March 4, Bank of America reinstated its coverage of the North American Automotive sector.

It picked three winners to which it assigned "buy" ratings: Ford, General Motors, and Tesla.

"We highlight Ford & General Motors (see reports) as OEM top picks as we see potential for upward estimate revisions given the shift away from EVs and emissions mandates that limited profitability over the past several years," the firm said in a research report emailed to TheStreet.

BofA sees upside in U.S. sales, as its forecasts for both sales and production are above industry estimates. It says pent-up demand from years of constrained supply will coalesce with "slowly improving" affordability to drive more demand.

Here's what the firm said about each company in its research report.

Ford gets "buy" rating and $17 price target, a 34% upside from March 4 opening price

"We think Ford is positioned well to capitalize on the significant shift in the regulatory backdrop under the current administration that should enable it to shift focus to its most margin accretive trucks/SUVs. We expect near-term benefits as Model E losses abate and the company's high-margin commercial business stabilizes. We expect Ford to make progress toward its 8% EBIT margin guide (from 4.8% in 2026E), including a large step-up in 2027."
"Ford improved its U.S. market share by 50bps in 2025, and we estimate the company is third in total share (with 13.2% retail share, including medium/heavy-duty trucks). Ford's strong position is anchored by its #2 rank in pickup trucks (by unit volume), where it holds over 30% share, and by its F-Series, which is the #1 U.S. nameplate. Positively, Ford's share in pickups is up by more than 300bps over the past two years."

General Motors gets "buy" rating and $105 price target, a 14% upside from March 4 opening price

"We are reinstating coverage of General Motors with a Buy rating and $105 price objective based on an EV of 3.5X our 2027 EBITDA. We believe GM is a key beneficiary of recent regulatory changes, including the removal of CAFE penalties and GHG relief, which are enabling a mix shift toward its most margin-accretive trucks/SUVs and away from unprofitable EVs. The evidence is compelling: we estimate that the variable profit per unit for trucks/SUVs is $17.5K, vs. the corporate average of $10-12K. We also believe GM should benefit in 2026 from lower warranty costs & regulatory credits, lean inventory levels, and low incentives."
"GM is the number 1 automaker by market share in the US (17.1% retail share, including medium/heavy duty trucks), which has improved 110bps over the past three years and should continue given benefits from a more favorable environment for ICE vehicles."

Tesla gets "buy" rating and $460 price target, a 14% upside from March 4 opening price

"We expect TSLA to quickly become a leader in robotaxi services, given its ability to scale more profitably than competitors. We see autonomous vehicles spurring the next era of mobility and as the most significant change agent in the Auto 2.0 landscape, offering consumers the prospect of saving time, safer travel, and more accessible transportation."
"We expect Tesla to quickly scale its Robotaxis, which now operate in San Francisco and Austin, with 7 additional markets expected in 1H26. The standard technology used in the autonomous industry is multi‑sensor fusion (LiDAR/radar/cameras), whereas Tesla's camera‑only approach is technically more challenging but much cheaper and leverages a consumer‑fleet data engine. Tesla's strategy should allow it to scale more profitably than Robotaxi competitors, while its driver shortage gives it a cost advantage vs. rideshare players. We estimate Robotaxi accounts for ~52% of TSLA's valuation."

Viral Tesla FSD video shows why human drivers are a big problem

Tony Owusu — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:33:00 GMT

In 2024, Tesla finally admitted what most people who had used the technology already knew: Full Self-Driving was not the Level 4 autonomous driving experience that had been promised for years.

The company was forced to add "Supervised" to the official FSD name.

Tesla global deliveries by year

2025: 1.22 million
2024: 1.79 million
2023: 1.81 million
2022: 1.37 million
2021: 936K
2020: 499K
2019: 367K
Source: Statista

Anything Level 3 and above is considered truly “autonomous.” This means no human intervention is required when the system activates features such as lane assist and automatic braking.

However, the system must be enabled by a present driver who must take over when asked to. J.D. Power lists Mercedes’ Drive Pilot as a Level 3 system.

That's not what Tesla FSD (Supervised) is designed to do. While the term Full-Self Driving (Supervised) is an oxymoron, the Supervised part is incredibly important, because the vehicle needs its operators to pay attention to the road, even when the software is engaged.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles accused Tesla in July 2022 of making misleading statements about FSD and Autopilot. Back then, the California DMV threatened to pull Tesla’s vehicle dealer and manufacturing licenses, according to Bottini & Bottini.

In February, Tesla sued the California DMV to reverse its ruling that the company engaged in false advertising by using the terms "Autopilot" and "Full Self-Driving" to describe its tech.

A viral video from California over the weekend showed just how dangerous the misconception that FSD is actually full self-driving can be for people on the road.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that drivers using Full-Self-Driving technology would be able to sleep while their vehicles safely take them to their destinations.

Photo by Alexander Shapovalov on Getty Images

Tesla driver with FSD engaged is asleep at the wheel in viral video

Just because Tesla is fighting California over its claims regarding what the company's assisted-driving tech can actually accomplish doesn't mean CEO Elon Musk will stop making cars with this feature.

A March 3 post on X (formerly Twitter) shared an interview clip in which Musk claimed that Tesla drivers will be able to fall asleep and have their vehicles safely take them to their destinations.

Some X users have called out how dangerous Musk's exaggerations could be for current drivers, and a recent viral video shows the real-world consequences of his bluster.

A video from the 10 Freeway in Colton, Calif., appeared to show a Tesla driver asleep at the wheel while the vehicle raced down the highway.

The person who recorded the video around 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 1, told ABC7 that they immediately called the police about the driver, but the California Highway Patrol said it was unable to locate them.

Tesla FSD can't do what many people seem to think it can

Last August, a Florida jury ruled that the family of Naibel Benavides and crash survivor Dillon Angulo were entitled to the nearly quarter-billion-dollar award after driver George McGee crashed his Tesla into a vehicle they were standing outside of.

McGee testified that he had Autopilot engaged when he killed the 22-year-old Benavides in Key Largo in 2019, but that his eyes were also off the road while he looked for the cellphone he had dropped.

“Tesla in the showroom tells you that they’ve invented the greatest full self-driving car the world has ever seen,” Brett Schrieber, the plaintiffs’ lawsuit litigator, said at the time.

“Mr. Musk has been peddling to consumers and investors for more than a decade that the cars are fully self-driving and that the hardware is capable of full autonomy. And those statements were as untrue the day he said them as they remain untrue today.”

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom affirmed the jury’s initial verdict Feb. 20, saying that the evidence at trial “more than supports” the judgment and that Tesla raised no new arguments to warrant reconsideration.

On Dec. 16, 2025, Administrative Law Judge Juliet E. Cox for the California Office of Administrative Hearings had ruled that Tesla was deceptive in its marketing of Autopilot and Full-Self Driving, ruling in favor of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which brought a complaint against the company in 2022.

The judge ordered that Tesla face a 30-day suspension of its selling and manufacturing licenses in the state.

However, California DMV Director Steve Gordon stated at the time that his agency had adopted the judge’s order with a modified penalty.

Tesla gets some more good news from a key region

Tony Owusu — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:00:00 GMT

For Tesla, 2025 was a year to forget.

Yes, the company finally launched its Tesla Robotaxi service after years of promises (though the couple dozen on the road are a far cry from the millions promised), but it also suffered reputational harm that many felt it wouldn't be able to fix.

World’s top EV markets in 2024

China: 6.4 million EVs sold
Europe: 2.2 million EVs sold
U.S.: 1.2 million EVs sold
Rest of world: 1 million EVs sold
Source: International Energy Agency

The year 2025 is the second consecutive one in which Tesla delivered fewer cars than it did the previous year. Tesla delivered 1.79 million vehicles in 2024 while producing 1.77 million. In 2023, the company delivered 1.81 million cars and produced 1.85 million.

While the company does not break out its sales by region, there is evidence that the company’s decline has been driven by rough spots in China and Europe, the two largest electric vehicle markets in the world.

The company reported falling sales across the European region for most of 2025, driven by numerous issues, including CEO Elon Musk’s increased involvement in politics.

Musk has publicly endorsed the AfD, a German right-wing party that some view as extremist, and he was accused of doing a Nazi salute on stage.

That trend followed into the second half of 2025 across the continent, including the United Kingdom, where registrations dropped by more than 29% in December, according to Reuters.

Tesla saw sales declines in Europe in 2025.

Photo by Brandon Bell on Getty Images

Tesla deliveries begin to rebound in Europe

As poorly as Tesla ended 2025 in Europe, it has shown signs of life across numerous countries in the region since then.

Year over year, Tesla registrations in France rose 55% in February, 74% in Spain, and 32% in Norway, Reuters reported. Tesla more than doubled its sales in Portugal as registrations jumped 112%. But it wasn't all good news for Tesla in the region.

New car registrations in Italy fell nearly 7% and were down nearly 18% in Denmark. Registrations dropped 45% in the Netherlands.

The year 2025 was the second consecutive one of falling Tesla sales on the European continent. Last year, they fell 27%, despite the company introducing newer, cheaper versions of its top-selling Model Y and Model 3 vehicles.

Tesla's market share in the EU, Britain, and the European Free Trade Association fell to 0.8% in January, well below its 1.8% market share in 2025, 2.5% market share in 2024, and 2.9% market share the year before that.

New car registrations fell by 3.9% year over year, but the battery-electric car market share reached 19.3%, up significantly from 14.9% a year earlier, according to ACEA.

France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands account for 60% of European EV sales on their own, and the results are mixed.

France and Germany saw registration gains of 52% and 24%, respectively, while Belgium and the Netherlands experienced declines of 11.5% and 35.4%, respectively.

Tesla loses ground for the second consecutive year

While Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks of his company as much more than just an electric vehicle maker, more than 90% of Tesla’s revenue comes from cars.

Still, after years of the Model S and the Model X not selling, Tesla announced earlier this month that it is mothballing them.

Even analysts are looking past the company’s struggling automotive business to the software Tesla has been developing.

"While the autos business at Tesla may underperform in 2026, we think more attention is directed towards the company’s robotaxi expansion and efforts at humanoid development,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a recent note.

“To the extent that the macro regime doesn’t change materially, we think investors will continue to look beyond weakness in the autos business.”

Tesla’s operating income dropped dramatically in 2025 to $4.86 billion from $7.76 billion in 2024, and its gross profit declined to $16.2 billion from $17.4 billion.

Tesla loses crucial Autopilot ruling that could cost hundreds of millions

Tony Owusu — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 01:33:00 GMT

Tesla rolled the dice with a lawsuit it thought it could win easily last year, but it struck out after a U.S. judge upheld the $243 million jury verdict against the company over a fatal crash in southern Florida last year involving the now-defunct Autopilot.

McGee testified that he had Autopilot engaged when he killed the 22-year-old Benavides in Key Largo in 2019, but that his eyes were also off the road while he looked for the cellphone he had dropped.

While Tesla argued that data showed McGee had his foot on the accelerator, overriding Autopilot, in the moments before his vehicle crashed at over 60 mph, the jury found Tesla 33% responsible for the crash.

"Tesla in the showroom tells you that they’ve invented the greatest full self-driving car the world has ever seen," Brett Schrieber, the plaintiffs' lawsuit litigator, said at the time. "Mr. Musk has been peddling to consumers and investors for more than a decade that the cars are fully self-driving and that the hardware is capable of full autonomy. And those statements were as untrue the day he said them as they remain untrue today.”

Tesla was unsuccessful in its attempt to overturn a $243 million judgment in the case of a 2019 fatal crash involving what was then called Full Self-Driving.

Photo by PonyWang on Getty Images

Judge rules against Tesla in bid to overturn $243 million judgment

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom affirmed the jury's initial verdict last Friday, Feb. 20, saying that the evidence at trial "more than supports" the judgment and that Tesla raised no new arguments to warrant reconsideration.

Tesla is expected to appeal the ruling after failing to overturn the award judgment, according to Reuters.

Tesla has made major changes to its description of what its driver assistance technology can do, as it has known for more than a year about the growing legal liability surrounding its claims regarding the technology.

Tesla quietly changed its FSD package, then known as "Full Self-Driving," to "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)," and instead of promising the car could completely drive itself, it also changed the language to state that the car would only drive "with minimal driver intervention."

Last month, Tesla canceled Autopilot, the most basic tier of its advanced driver assistance program, on new Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The move removed the Autosteer lane-centering feature from the vehicle's base configurations, leaving only the Traffic-Aware Cruise Control feature.

The company also no longer allows vehicle owners to buy FSD (Supervised) outright. Now they can only pay for the tech on a subscription basis.

Tesla has settled numerous FSD/Autopilot lawsuits in the past

Tesla has a track record of either settling Autopilot death lawsuits or outright winning them, reported Lowe Trial Lawyers. Tesla approached Schreiber with a settlement offer, but the plaintiffs rejected it.

“Well, I mean, they did make an overture to settle the case, and for a very large sum of money. Now, it was a fraction of the verdict, but the condition of the settlement was that it would be secret. And my clients were not interested in a secret settlement,” he said.

Tesla’s history of settling lawsuits

$10.5 million settlement – California, 2023: A Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged hit a highway barrier, killing the driver. The family said Autopilot failed to detect the obstacle and that Tesla misrepresented the vehicle’s capabilities.
$8.2 million settlement – California, 2022: A pedestrian was killed in a crosswalk by a Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot engaged that didn’t stop or alert the driver of an issue until it was too late.
$7.5 million settlement – California, 2021: A Tesla Model S with Autopilot engaged rear-ended a stopped vehicle at high speed, instantly killing the victim. Investigators said they found no evidence that the car even tried to brake before the collision.
$6.8 million settlement – California, 2020: A Tesla Model X with Autopilot engaged crashed into a parked fire truck. The driver of the vehicle survived, but the passenger died from blunt force trauma.

Just weeks before the trials were set to begin, Tesla also reached confidential settlements in two additional lawsuits brought over the deaths of people involved in crashes featuring Autopilot, Reuters reported, citing court documents.

The settlement notice for one lawsuit related to the 2019 death of a 15-year-old boy, who was traveling in Alameda County, Calif., with his father when their vehicle was rear-ended by a Tesla Model 3 with Autopilot engaged.

The victims’ vehicle rolled over and crashed into the center barrier, killing the youth.

The second case, also from 2019, involved two people in a Honda Civic traveling through an intersection in Gardena, Calif., when a Tesla Model S with Autopilot engaged plowed through a red light and crashed into their car.

Tesla settled its case with the victims, but Reuters reported that the driver of the vehicle and “some other defendants” will continue their trial.

In August, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin ruled that Tesla must face a California class-action lawsuit alleging the company misled customers about Full Self-Driving’s capabilities.

During his arguments, Schreiber seized on the idea of Tesla misleading customers.

“[Musk] says these things for a reason. He says this to create this idea in the public’s mind that these cars are more than they really are,” Schreiber said.

“He makes these comments, going back to 2015. Autonomous driving is a solved problem. They are safer than humans. It will stop for anything. It knows if there’s something metal and something dense in front of it, it should stop. It doesn’t matter if it’s an alien spaceship, he said. And we played all of those (during the trial) because that aligns with the law.”

Silver, gold surge as Iran bets shift

Charley Blaine — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 16:33:00 GMT

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Trump's tariff plan from last spring is unconstitutional.

At the same time, gold and silver rose in futures trading.

But the two events aren't really related.

They have more to do with what's going on, first, in industry and, second, in the Middle East. And the odds are that prices will be volatile into the next week or so while the Trump Administration weighs a possible attack on Iran.

After that, bulls are sure silver will remain strong in 2026, but perhaps not as feverishly high as it was in January.

Earlier in February, JPMorgan Chase raised its price target on silver to $81 an ounce.

Silver shot past that target on Friday, trading above $82, up nearly 6% on the week.

That's down nearly 38% from its peak price of $121.785 per troy ounce on Jan. 29 as silver trading morphed from bullish to absolutely feverish.

Silver being refined in Austria.

The reasons silver prices rose

Silver fell to as low as $72 an ounce on Feb. 16 but has rallied since for three reasons:

Worries about possible Persian Gulf hostilities have generated a move to safe assets in many markets for a second time in the last 12 months. Gold and silver tend to win when geopolitical worries shoot higher.
The confidence that continued expansion of data centers and computer systems to handle artificial intelligence applications will continue to be strong. Silver is a key component used in these industries.
The Supreme Court ruling will do nothing to limit growth in U.S. government deficits and deficits in other countries, Bloomberg noted. So, central banks will continue to buy gold and silver as hedges. The U.S. Dollar Index has fallen more than 10% since the end of 2024. The index measures the dollar against a basket of currencies.

ETFs and metals shares rise

As gold and silver rose, many related investments moved higher. Exchange-traded fund that buy precious metals moved up. So did mining and related stocks, especially those concentrated on silver. The list includes:

iShares Silver Trust ETF, up 7.9%.
SPDR Gold Shares ETC, up 1.9%.
Global X Silver Miners ETF, up 4.4%
Hecla Mining, up 5.2%.
Pan American Silver, up 5.8%.
Freeport-McMoRan, up 2.6%.

The one gold stock that wasn't doing well was Newmont Corp., down 2.6% after warning that 2026 production might decline a bit from 2025.

More Gold & Silver:

Silver jumped 145% or so in 2025, and gold was up 65%. Both have risen an additional 16.5% so far in 2026.

Stocks move higher

Stocks finished the week largely higher because of bullishness around technology and technology-related stocks.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 1% on the week. The Nasdaq added 1.5%.

Six of the seven Magnificent Seven stocks were higher — Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Tesla. Microsoft fell 0.3%.

Cybertruck fans have 10 days to take advantage of Tesla's desperation

Tony Owusu — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 01:07:00 GMT

Despite its many critics, CEO Elon Musk calls the Cybertruck the "best vehicle Tesla has ever made." On Thursday, Feb. 19, he took the drastic measure of slashing the price of the expensive electric pickup, at least for a limited time.

Tesla as a whole has been having demand issues for a while, as falling EV sales in the U.S. and China in general have combined with Elon Musk's deteriorating personal brand.

Tesla's annual revenue declined in 2025 for the first time ever, as deliveries also fell for the second consecutive year. Tesla says it is much more than a car company, and that its future lies in artificial intelligence and autonomous driving.

Service revenue stemming from its vehicles like supercharging, vehicle insurance, and repairs generated another $12.7 billion in revenue. Auto sales already aren't a high-margin business, and its automotive gross margin (excluding regulatory credits) actually dipped into the red for the first time in 2025, according to Reuters.

Tesla sold about 5,400 Cybertrucks in the third quarter, representing a 62.6% year-over-year drop, according to Cox Automotive data. Tesla typically doesn’t trail its ICE rival Ford in EV sales, but even Ford’s F-150 Lightning EV pickup sold 10,000 units in the same period.

While Tesla does not release official delivery numbers, analysis by external firms, such as Finbold Research, suggests the company has sold just over 16,000 Cybertrucks as of October, European Business Magazine reported. Tesla sold just 20,237 Cybertrucks in 2025, according to Kelley Blue Book numbers, down nearly 50% from the 38,965 it sold in 2024.

This week, Tesla made a move to make the Cybertruck more palatable, even if it's for a limited time only.

Tesla is offering a limited-time sale on the Cybertruck.

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN on Getty Images

Tesla slashes Cybertruck price tag for 10 days

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made a number of promises when it comes to everything from Mars, to humanoid robots, to the Cybertruck.

On Thursday, Feb. 19, Musk promised to cut the price of the expensive pickup truck.

On Thursday, Tesla debuted the new dual-motor, all-wheel-drive version of the Cybertruck that offers up to 325 miles of range and starts at $59,990.

With the move, Tesla inches one step closer to the initial promise it made when Elon Musk first began mentioning the Cybertruck.

The vehicle features all of the steer-by-wire, steel paneling that Cybertruck fans know and love, with the main differences being lower towing and payload capacity, smaller wheels, fewer display panels, and a few other downgrades, Sawyer Merritt posted on X (formerly Twitter).

However, while the initial euphoria of the lower-priced model was still sinking in, on Friday morning, Feb. 20, Musk dropped a bombshell: The $59,990 price point was only valid for the next 10 days.

X users were not thrilled with the announcement that the deal was temporary, leaving many to speculate that the company was getting ready to mothball the Cybertruck, as it had the Model S and Model X earlier this year.

Tesla is also lowering the price point for the Cyberbeast, the most advanced version of the pickup, to $99,990 from $114,990, on a seemingly permanent basis. According to Reuters, this discontinues the "luxe package" that included Supervised Full Sell-Driving and free Supercharger network access.

Tesla had added the package only last August when it raised the price of the truck.

Elon Musk first generated buzz in 2017 when he teased a picture of a pickup truck that would eventually be known worldwide as the Cybertruck.

But the most exciting promise made back then was the idea that this powerful behemoth would be affordable, starting at $39,900.

Musk promised that the truck’s electric powertrain could generate enough towing capacity to make the more heavy-duty Ford F-150 blush. The Cybertruck would be “a pickup truck that can carry a pickup truck.”

The vehicle actually debuted with a $60,000 price tag and the vehicle currently has a starting MSRP north of $72,000, according to Car and Driver. It has also been plagued by recall issues ever since.

Tesla's Cybertruck business shows signs of cracking

Tesla's latest Cybertruck change comes about three months after the company announced the departure of the man who was responsible for the car since the beginning.

On Nov. 10, Siddhant Awasthi, Tesla’s head of the Cybertruck program, announced he is leaving the company after more than eight years.

Awasthi worked his way up after joining the company straight out of school in 2018. Within two years he became an engineering manager, and within three, he was the technical program manager in charge of the Cybertruck. He was made head of the Cybertruck program in 2022.

At the beginning of 2025, reports emerged that Tesla was scaling down production of the Cybertruck. In a leaked memo, Tesla notified workers that production workers on the Cybertruck assembly line at its Austin Gigafactory would be switching over to Model Y production.

Cox Automotive estimates fewer than 60,000 Cybertruck sales since deliveries began in November 2023.

Last year, it was reported that Tesla was no longer accepting Cybertruck vehicle trade-ins. The company was sitting on about $200 million in Cybertruck inventory as of April, according to the report, with prices falling 55% year over year.

However, according to a Electrek report, Tesla reversed that policy last spring.

Tesla began taking Foundation Series Cybertruck trade-ins, and the offered prices seem to confirm the depreciation reported last month.

Tesla was selling brand-new 2024 Cybertruck AWD Foundation Series for about $100,000 last year. A person with 6,000 miles on the odometer was offered $65,400 for that same vehicle, representing a 34.6% depreciation in less than a year.

According to Kelley Blue Book, pickup trucks generally lose about 20% of their value in the first year of ownership, with the rate slowing down to 8% to 12% a year after that.

The cheapest used 2024 AWD Cybertrucks were going for about $75,000 on Autotrader this week.

Chevron stock price target resets as oil strategy shifts

Charley Blaine — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 14:47:00 GMT

Always remember this about the oil industry. It is a long-term business. Finding oil and actually getting it to market today takes years from initial finding.

That long-term thinking has come into play at Chevron (CVX) this year, resulting in a major strategy shift in Venezuela that's captured the attention of analysts at Melius Research, a Wall Street investment house.

Melius upgraded Chevron and boosted its price target, recognizing a shift toward more aggressive production in Venezuela and exploration overseas. Those moves could make a recent drop in oil prices immaterial, despite Saudi Arabia flooding global oil markets to punish other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that are flagrantly violating production quotas.

Remember: Oil and natural gas are the world's most political commodities, as people have learned since the 1970s, followed by wheat and, maybe, sugar

Why Chevron won an upgrade

Melius Research rates Chevron's stock a buy, increasing its stock target price to $205. That's a 13.5% increase from the Feb. 17 closing price of $180.55, and off 0.8% for the day. The target is tops among Wall Street sell-side analysts.

Chevron shares already are up 18.5% on the year, a function of higher oil prices. Light sweet crude, or West Texas Intermediate, is up 2.4% in 2026, finishing at $62.33 a barrel on Feb. 17. Brent crude, the global benchmark, is up about 10.8.% at $57.42.

Those prices are down substantially — as much as 30% — from speculative peaks reached in the summer of 2022, in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

What Melius analyst James West cited in his report about Chevron were four factors:

A recent reshuffle in Chevron's management to prioritize younger company-developed leaders. The goal is to position the oil giant for its next growth phase. And the moves demonstrate a more aggressive approach to talent acquisition.
Digestion and integration of assets in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, acquired in Chevron's $55 billion merger with Hess Corp in Summer 2025.
New opportunities in Libya and Iraq. Plus, Chevron is exploring new shale prospects in Argentina. On Feb. 16, the company signed a lease agreement with Greece to be able to explore four areas south of the island of Crete and south of the Peloponnese Peninsula. The company is also expanding production from its Leviathan platform off the coast of Israel.
Lastly, Chevron is the only major U.S. company with operations in Venezuela. Its refinery produces 250,000 barrels of oil a day now, with production expected to double by 2030. The assumption is Venezuela will see greater exploitation of its huge reserves with a new governmental regime after the U.S. arrest of then-President of Nicolas Maduro on drug-trafficking charges.

So, if you're investing in Chevron, you're making (probably) a long-term bet that requires patience. The same holds for any energy company. Investment analysts Zacks would not argue with you if you now have big gains in the shares this year and want to cash out.

Chevron is a global oil giant. The supermajor is ramping production, particularly in Venezuela.

To pay off in the long run, Chevron, Exxon, and others are investing massively in computer power and, now, artificial intelligence to fine-tune their exploration activities.

Decent prospects nowadays are often 7,000 feet or more more before the earth's surface. Chevron's Jack/St. Malo field in the Gulf of Mexico, first discovered in 2003, is as much as 7,000 feet beneath the Gulf's surface.

The Permian Basin, the biggest U.S. producing region, has produced oil from 5,000 feet to 25,000 feet below the surface.

More Oil and Gas:

Global demand is going to rise, especially since electric vehicle production has been staggered by consumer prices unwilling to pay the market prices. And, in the United States, tax breaks for electric vehicles were ended in the 2025 tax bill.

Energy leads the S&P 500

Energy stocks have attracted investor interest this year, as Barrons noted, by their relative stability compared with risky tech bets like software.

Year-to-date, the Standard & Poor's 500 energy sector has gained nearly 20%, tops among the 11 sectors in the index.

Technology overall is down 4.5%, weighed down by softness in some of the giants, including Microsoft (down 17.9%), Salesforce (down 30.4%), and even Nvidia (down nearly 1%). Nvidia reports fourth-quarter results on Feb. 25.

The weakest sector is consumer discretionary stocks, dragged down by stress in such stocks as Tesla, Amazon.com, and Booking Holdings.

Consumer Reports top-5 vehicles to buy this Presidents Day

Tony Owusu — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 16:33:00 GMT

Purchasing a new vehicle is an arduous process that takes a lot of planning, a lot of time, and a lot of money.

There are plenty of online aides to help with the planning part of the equation. Better planning can help reduce the time it takes to make your decision. And there are even things you can do to alleviate that last, most important leg of the process: the price.

The internet is full of advice about the right time of year, month, and day to get the best deal on your new car purchase.

December is the best month of the year to hunt for deals since dealers are trying their best to meet their end-of-year sales quotas and clear out the last of their inventory.

According to Edmunds, December has historically been the best month to buy a new car, and while the pandemic upended that trend for a couple of years, since 2023, December has had the steepest discounts.

I know what you're thinking; this information would have been useful two months ago.

But December isn't the only time of the year to find good deals.

Presidents Day, which lands on Feb. 16 this year, is one of the biggest car sales days on the calendar, along with the Fourth of July.

Presidents Day falls smack in the middle of tax season, which is also another popular time to buy a car since dealerships often require a minimum 20% down payment, and many Americans have extra funds from their tax returns at this time of year.

Presidents Day also falls on a Monday every year, and Mondays tend to be the least busy day of the week at the dealership (though a holiday may slightly alter that part of the equation).

What I'm saying is that if you are in the market for a new vehicle, this weekend may be the time to find some of the year's best deals.

Luckily enough, Consumer Reports recently released its top car picks for 2026 to help you make your choice.

But there's a twist.

This year, for the first time, every one of their top picks is either a hybrid (or is available as one) or an electric vehicle.

What is Consumer Reports?

It does this by purchasing and testing products directly, administering detailed surveys to its members about the products they own and use, and investigating the veracity of manufacturers’ claims.

Consumer Reports at a glance

Founded: 1936 (as Consumers Union by former employees of Consumers’ Research, fired after they attempted to unionize)
Headquartered: Yonkers, NY
Leadership: Marta Tellado (president and CEO)
Employees: Approx. 500 to 600
Members: At least 6 million
Mission statement: “Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works side by side with consumers for truth, transparency, and fairness in the marketplace.”

Consumer Reports names top car picks for 2026

If you are planning to buy a car this Presidents Day or anytime soon thereafter, consider these vehicles, which are Consumer Reports' top picks for 2026.

Consumer Reports Luxury Compact SUV pick: Lexus NX 2026

Lexus

Price Range: $44,175 - $62,830 (Hybrid: $41.955 - $57,805)

Consumer Reports MPG: Overall 25/ City 17/ Hwy 35 (Hybrid: Overall 38/ City 37/ Hwy 39)

Ranking: #2 of 25 (Hybrid: #1 of 25)

What CR says: If you’re interested in a small luxury SUV, the Lexus NX is the surest answer. This repeat Top Pick combines elegance, efficiency, and reliability. Yes, the cabin is fairly compact, but it doesn’t feel crowded, and it’s equipped with soft surfaces and controls with a solid, high-quality feel. The front seats are especially plush and supportive.

Consumer Reports Luxury Midsize SUV pick: BMW X5

Photo by Sjoerd van der Wal on Getty Images

Price Range: $67,600 - $129,700 (Hybrid: $73,800)

Consumer Reports MPG: Overall 23/ City 15/ Hwy 33 mpg (Hybrid: Overall 21/ City 14/ Hwy 28)

Ranking: #1 of 17 Luxury Midsized SUV

What CR says: The BMW X5 remains one of the best luxury SUVs we’ve ever tested. It’s a premium, well-rounded vehicle that feels special even before you put it into gear. The cabin is dressed in leather, wood, chrome, and soft surfaces, and the supportive seats are perfectly sculpted for daylong road trips. The gas-only X5 is both powerful and efficient, with acceleration and efficient, with acceleration that rivals a sports sedan and fuel economy that, at 23 mpg overall, is among the best of any nonhybrid midsized SUV.

Consumer Reports Small Pickup pick: Ford Maverick

Ford

Price Range: $28,145 - $41,425

Consumer Reports MPG: Overall 23/ City 16/ Hwy 32 (Hybrid: Overall 37/ City 33/ Hwy 39)

Ranking: #2 of 3 small pickup trucks

What CR says: The Maverick is a great choice if you want a weekday commuter and a weekend plaything. The latest Maverick continues to stand out for its low entry price, relatively roomy cabin, and smooth ride—and for being available with a hybrid powertrain. The 2.5-liter, front-drive hybrid impressed us by achieving a superb 37 mpg overall in our tests. The more spirited gas-only 250-hp turbocharged four-cylinder returned 23 mpg overall, but it has a better predicted reliability score.

Consumer Reports Full-Sized Pickup pick: Ford F-150

Ford

Price Range: $37,290 - $79,005

Consumer Reports MPG: Overall 19/ City 13/ Hwy 26 mpg

Ranking: #2 of 15 full-sized pickup trucks

What CR says: The Ford F-150 remains America’s bestselling truck for many good reasons. This year, its improved reliability earned it a spot on our list. It also stands out for its strong powertrains, roomy cabin, and simple controls. The latest version adds useful innovations, such as blind-spot monitors and aids that simplify backing up and hooking up a trailer, as well as a flat tailgate that doubles as a workbench. The base 325-hp, 2.7-liter turbo V6 is a gem, with loads of low-end power and a smooth-shifting 10-speed automatic transmission.

Consumer Reports Electric Vehicle pick: Tesla Model Y

Tesla

Price Range: $39,990 - $59,990

Consumer Reports MPG: Overall 123/ City 130/ Hwy 115 mpge

Ranking: #1 of 22 electric SUVs

What CR says: Continuing its reign as the bestselling electric vehicle, the Model Y combines a practical yet sleek hatchback design, long driving range, sports-car-level performance, and access to the widespread Tesla Supercharger network. Refreshed for 2026, the latest Model Y gained numerous updates. It has a more compliant ride, acoustic glass for a quieter cabin, upgraded interiors, and—in the midlevel Premium trim and up—an 8-inch touchscreen for rear passengers.

New Tesla vision sounds almost too good to be true

Tony Owusu — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 15:07:00 GMT

I never understood the consternation surrounding Tesla CEO Elon Musk's pay package. If Tesla investors voted to pay him a gazillion dollars, who are we to go against their wishes?

If you are an investor who doesn't like it, sell. If you aren't an investor, it's really none of your business anyway.

Still, it's fair to wonder why Tesla investors don't insist on more specificity from their leader.

Musk tends to give very mundane answers when asked about what's going on with the company currently, but he really shines when the topic turns to the distant future. That's when he gets to make his bold predictions.

Take Tesla's most recent earnings call, for example.

Elon announced that Tesla is updating its mission to "amazing abundance" to prepare for the AI-induced utopia he envisions.

"We're going to keep improving safety, driving down the cost of goods, and getting people access to anything they need, without compromise," Musk said. "And still making sure that the environment is great, nature is great, and people can have whatever they want."

It sounds almost too good to be true. And while it would be easy to dismiss this vision as the dreams of an optimist, if you are a Tesla owner, it may worry you that the company's mission is now serving that future.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tends to make bold promises about the distant future.

ShapovalovGetty Images

Tesla FSD v14 promises don't match reality

Autonomous driving is Tesla's future, perhaps even more so than Musk's future Garden of Eden. But the company's grasp of reality here also seems faulty.

Ashok Elluswamy was the first engineer hired to Tesla's AI team in 2014; today, he is the company's vice president of AI software.

During the earnings call, he revealed that the latest FSD update was a variant of the tech being used in its autonomous Robotaxis in Austin.

"A variant of the software that's used for the robotaxi service was shipped to customers with V14, and customers saw a huge jump in performance, like a lot of, you know, happy feedback from customers," said Elluswamy.

But just a quick perusal of X (formerly Twitter) — you know, Elon Musk's home turf — shows the opposite of a lot of "happy feedback from customers."

In fact, just typing "FSD v14" into the search bar brought up many Tesla owners complaining, and at least one looking to switch back to the previous version of the software (though other owners and fans were enjoying their FSD v14 update).

In any case, it doesn't seem as if Elluswamy has a strong grasp of what his actual customers are experiencing. During the call, he said his team was "laser focused" on solving unsupervised FSD, seconds before he also said, "I think some customers took rides last week."

Investors might assume that someone who is laser-focused on solving a problem would not only know for sure whether paying customers used the technology unsupervised the week prior to the earnings call, but would also have follow-up information on how their experience went.

Tesla loses ground for the second consecutive year

While Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks of his company as much more than just an electric vehicle maker, more than 90% of Tesla’s revenue comes from cars.

Still, after years of the Model S and the Model X not selling, Tesla announced earlier this month that it is mothballing them.

Even analysts are looking past the company’s struggling automotive business to the software Tesla has been developing.

“To the extent that the macro regime doesn’t change materially, we think investors will continue to look beyond weakness in the autos business.”

The year 2025 marked Tesla’s second consecutive year of falling car deliveries. Tesla delivered 1.64 million vehicles last year, down from 1.78 million in 2024 and 1.81 million in 2023.

Tesla’s operating income dropped dramatically in 2025 to $4.86 billion from $7.76 billion in 2024, and its gross profit declined to $16.2 billion from $17.4 billion.

Tesla proves it truly is a tech (not car) company with latest move

Tony Owusu — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:33:00 GMT

From its inception, Tesla was different from its fellow U.S. automakers, and with its latest decision on Full Self Driving, the company is solidifying itself as a tech company, not a car company.

Unlike the Detroit Big 3, Tesla was born in Silicon Valley, and its ambitions have always matched those of Google rather than those of Ford. And now it is treating its software just like Facebook or Google might.

Tesla is part of the high-volume, large-market-cap cohort known as the Magnificent 7, which includes tech industry stalwarts such as Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.

Tesla also plans to spend money more like a tech company rather than like a car company.

Tesla spent just $8.5 billion on capex in 2025, but it plans to spend $20 billion this year alone as it looks to build fewer cars and more Optimus humanoid robots.

Full-Self Driving technology is at the cutting edge of real-world driving assistance, and with its latest move, Tesla is making it clear that they own the tech, you, the customer, are just renting it from them.

Tesla has strict rules about the secondary market for its cars.

Photo by CFOTO on Getty Images

Tesla changes FSD resale rules, leaving owners confused

As Tesla has matured as a car company, so have its vehicle policies, especially in the resale market.

Tesla previously had a strict no-resale policy for the Cybertruck, prohibiting sales within the first year of delivery. Before the company backtracked on this policy, Tesla held the right to assess a $50,000 fine to Cybertruck owners who sold their vehicles.

Tesla is targeting the secondary market with its latest policy change.

As Electrek reported, Tesla recently sent out a marketing email that makes a change to the company's longstanding policy that Tesla FSD ownership is transferred to whoever owns the car.

Now, Tesla says, "When you purchase Full Self-Driving (Supervised), it stays with your Tesla as long as you own it."

This, coupled with the fact that Tesla will stop selling FSD on February 14, and instead go to a subscription-only model straight out of Silicon Valley.

But if you paid $8,000 for the full FSD package before the change, those capabilities disappear once the vehicle is resold, according to Electrek, which points out that FSD's support page directly contradicts this new policy.

"If the previous owner purchased FSD (Supervised) with a one-time payment rather than subscribing, then the vehicle will be transferred to you with FSD (Supervised). If the previous owner subscribed to FSD (Supervised) for a monthly fee, you will need to subscribe using your own Tesla Account." Tesla's website says.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla loses ground for the second consecutive year

While Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks of his company as much more than just an electric vehicle maker, more than 90% of Tesla’s revenue comes from cars.

Still after years of not selling, Tesla announced earlier this month that it is mothballing the Model S and the Model X.

Even analysts are looking past the company's struggling car-selling business to the software Tesla has been developing.

“While the autos business at Tesla may underperform in 2026, we think more attention is directed towards the company’s robotaxi expansion and efforts at humanoid development,” Deutsche Bank analysts said in a recent note. “To the extent that the macro regime doesn’t change materially, we think investors will continue to look beyond weakness in the autos business.”

The year 2025 marked Tesla’s second consecutive year of falling car deliveries. Tesla delivered 1.64 million vehicles last year, down from 1.78 million in 2024 and 1.81 million in 2023.

Tesla’s operating income dropped dramatically in 2025 to $4.86 billion from $7.76 billion in 2024, and its gross profit declined to $16.2 billion from $17.4 billion.

But based on recent history, Tesla investors aren’t going anywhere because of the promise the company represents. CEO Elon Musk and his vision has brought them this far, and investors and analysts alike are hesitant to abandon him now.

Elon Musk’s promises keep investors intrigued

Analysts at Deutsche Bank expect the bad times to stretch into 2026, but the firm remains bullish on the company, given its future ambitions.

“To the extent that the macro regime doesn’t change materially, we think investors will continue to look beyond weakness in the autos business.”

Tesla reported delivering 418,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, exceeding the 15% year-over-year decline to 422,000 vehicles that analysts polled by Tesla had expected.

For the year, they expected 1.64 million deliveries, an 8.6% decline, which Tesla achieved.

Tesla is left out of latest White House Trade deal

Tony Owusu — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 01:07:00 GMT

Tesla CEO Elon Musk famously spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Donald Trump win a second term as president of the United States.

His help didn't stop there. Musk turned his social media platform into an engine for Trump's online movement, playing yet another key role in his victory.

Not to suggest that they have a quid pro quo relationship, but since he took office, President Trump has repaid Musk's leg up, and then some.

Tesla Q4 deliveries

Q4 Model 3 and Y deliveries: 406,585
Q4 all other models deliveries: 11,642
Q4 Model 3/Y production: 422,652
Q4 all other models production: 11,706

Amid falling sales earlier last year, the president held what could only be described as a live Tesla commercial taping on the White House lawn, for an advertisement that would never air. He and Musk hopped into a red $80,000 Model S sedan, with which Trump seemed very impressed.

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” President Trump said while settling into the car. “This is a different panel than I’ve had; it’s all computer!”

And that tiny gesture pales in comparison to the president's gift of appointing Musk to head the Department of Government Efficiency, through a legal mechanism that allowed him to bypass a Senate confirmation hearing on his way to the cabinet position.

While their relationship has involved some very public domestic disputes, the two have seemingly patched things up in recent months and are as good friends as they've ever been.

Despite their rekindled friendship, Trump doesn't seem to have Musk or Tesla in mind as he negotiates his latest trade deal with India.

Tesla announced it is halting production of President Donald Trump's beloved Model S in a few months.

Photo by Andrew Harnik on Getty Images

U.S.-India trade agreement leaves Tesla out of the equation

Last April, after weeks of delay, the U.S. finally unveiled the plan for its trade war. The president famously held up a posterboard showing all the "Liberation Day" tariffs that would be imposed on American trade partners.

But he also said the framework was malleable and that the U.S. would negotiate rates on an ongoing basis. Almost a year to the week after they began negotiations, the U.S. and India say they are close to reaching an agreement on trade policy.

Last week, the pair announced that they've reached a "framework for an interim agreement" that includes India eliminating or reducing tariffs with an emphasis on U.S. food and agricultural products, including dried distillers' grains, red sorghum for animal feed, soybean oil, and other U.S. staple crops.

In return, the U.S. will apply an 18% "reciprocal tariff rate" on a wide range of industries, including textiles, organic chemicals, machinery, and other products, down from 50%. In exchange, the country will stop purchasing oil from Russia.

Over the weekend, officials told Reuters that India will cut tariffs on high-end American cars to 30% from as high as 110%. India will also eliminate tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles under the interim agreement.

However, India will not make any concessions on electric vehicles, according to the report.

India is currently the third-largest automobile market behind China and the U.S., according to S&P Global. India's government also says it wants to boost EV market share from the current 5% to reach 30% of the country’s automobile sector by 2030, Cornell University's SC Johnson College of Business reported.

Elon Musk has repeatedly criticized India's tariffs on imported autos, which range from 70% to 110%.

India leaves U.S. autos out in the cold

One of the tenets of modern warfare is the concept of blowback: Military victories on the battlefield can have unintended negative consequences off the battlefield.

One unintended consequence of President Trump's trade war has been increased cooperation among countries not named the United States.

India, for instance, while making a few concessions on U.S. vehicles, just announced a wide-ranging automotive tariff deal with the EU just two weeks ago. The agreement lowers tariffs on car imports from EU countries to 40% from 110%, with that rate potentially going down to 10% over time.

This immediately reduced prices on EU car imports, priced at about 15,000 euros ($17,700), according to Reuters, and lowered tariffs on as many as 200,000 vehicles, though negotiations are still ongoing.

So compared to the U.S., the EU was able to negotiate lower tariffs on a broader range of autos. This is really bad for Tesla, because India's EV market is ready to explode.

Here's why Tesla struggles to move vehicles in India

Unlike U.S. tariffs, India's tariffs have successfully insulated the country's automotive industry from foreign competitors.

Tesla received orders for just over 600 vehicles in the country between mid-July and September. After that revelation, the company said it planned to ship only 350 to 500 cars to India last year, falling well short of its internal estimates, sources told Bloomberg.

Tesla had expected to deliver its entire 2,500-car annual quota to the country, but the demand just isn't there.

One reason for this lack of demand is that Tesla's entry-level model in India is priced above 6 million rupees ($68,000), while domestic electric vehicles cost about a third of that. Fewer than 3,000 EVs priced between 4.5 million and 7 million rupees were sold in India during the first half of 2025, auto intelligence firm JATO Dynamics said, according to Bloomberg.

But it isn't as though India hasn't extended some olive branches to Tesla. In 2024, the country cut import taxes on EVs for global carmakers that committed to investing at least $500 million and starting local production within three years.

However, in 2025, HD Kumaraswamy, the country's heavy industries minister, said Tesla was "not interested in manufacturing in India," BBC reported. Unlike other car companies including Mercedes-Benz, Skoda-Volkswagen, Hyundai, and Kia, he said all "have shown interest. Tesla — we are not expecting from them."

Tesla has flirted with an Indian Gigafactory for years, with vague promises from Musk about "trying to figure out the right timing" in 2023. But Musk sees what everyone else sees: India does not have enough EV demand for Tesla to justify building a whole factory there.

But this could leave Tesla looking from the outside in, as other carmakers flock to grab a piece of that huge market.

Mag 7 faces brutal reality check as $200B AI bill drops bombshell

Charley Blaine — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 13:50:30 GMT

Gather round while we look at the reality of markets. They correct, and sometimes, corrections are brutal. Feb. 5 proved to be a really brutal day, especially for the Magnificent 7 stocks.

The Mag 7 group, which includes Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, has mostly struggled so far this year.

That's because investors worry that the group is spending billions on data labs that may take years to become profitable.

And there's no sign the contagion is easing.

Among the seven Magnificent Seven stocks, five are showing losses of 10% or more from their recent 52-week highs:

Amazon.com, down 13.9% on the Feb. 5 close from Nov. 3, 2025's peak.
Facebook parent Meta Platforms, down 15.8% since peaking on Aug. 15, 2025.
Microsoft, down 29.1% from July 31, 2025 peak.
Nvidia, down 19% from its Oct. 29, 2025 top.
Tesla, down 20.4% the Dec. 22, 2025 peak.

Apple, a member of the Dow Jones 30, and Google-parent Alphabet are also down, but not as much as the others: 4.4% for Apple and 5.1% for Alphabet from highs reached on Dec. 3, 2025, and Feb. 3, 2026, respectively.

But Amazon shares fell 9.6% after reporting earnings and estimated it will spend $200 billion on artificial intelligence investments this year alone.

The stocks that emerged in 2025 as near-Mag 7 stocks were also, well, creamed:

Broadcom, down 23.65% from Sept. 10, 2025.
Palantir, down 36.6% from Nov. 3, 2025.
Oracle, down 60.5% from Sept. 10, 2025.

The AI hangover from 2025

The losses for many stocks now come after big gains in 2025. And the market as a whole is feeling the stress.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index is now off 1.53% in February and down 0.7% so far in 2026.
The Nasdaq Composite Index, down 3% for the year, has seen a 3.7% slide so far in February and is looking at a 3% loss this year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, despite a Feb. 5 loss of nearly 593 points, is up 1.76% this year and even up 0.8% so far for the month.

The S&P 500 is down 2.9% from its 52-week high last fall. The Nasdaq-100 Index is down 6.2%, but the recent selling is proving stubborn.

For big tech companies, the tension is growing between companies and investors as they try to balance the investment levels needed to deliver on artificial investment goals and shareholders' interest in gains.

Big tech, which saw shares jump last year, are giving a lot back. Oracle was up 107.5% in 2025 and is down 30% this year. Nvidia, up 40% in 2025, is down 7.8% in 2026.

"People are definitely going more defensive," said Brian Frank, president and portfolio manager at Frank Funds, told Bloomberg. "It’s more of like a shoot first and ask questions later type environment."

Tech and crypto waiting for a bottom

In fairness, we have to note that stresses on the stock market are not uniform. They're concentrated on technology and anything connected to crypto.

Bitcoin is a mess. It fell 13.3% to $63,597 just on Feb. 5. The close was its lowest level since October 2024.

At the close, Bitcoin was down 27.4% this year, 18.4% after five days of trading in February and nearly 50% since its 52-week high in October.

More Nvidia:

Bitcoin is — and always has been — a boom and bust phenomenon. When booming, it sucks in dollars loudly. A slump, however, will push dollars out just as quickly, especially dollars that came in through exchange-traded funds.

But the holdings are often hard to understand, and selloffs can cause big problems.

Here, we suggest you watch what happens to the crypto company Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy).

After the Feb. 5 close, Strategy announced a loss of $42.9 a share, or $12.6 billion, in the fourth quarter. It owns 713,602 bitcoin, but their current value of $46 billion is at least 40% less than what the company paid for them. With bitcoin under $64,000, investor Michael Burry suggested to Barrons, the company may have trouble financing its business.

Not everyone was hit

A total of 183 S&P 500 stocks were higher on Feb. 5. So, the end of markets as we know them aren't in play yet. The SP 500's leader on the day was pharmaceutical distributor McKesson, up 16.5%. Another leader: Hershey, up 9%.

The biggest losers in the index included Estee Lauder, down 19.2%; Coinbase Global, down 13.3%; and Cummins, the engine maker, down 10.7%.

Consumer staples stocks were the day's strongest group. These include Hershey, Mondelez International, Coca-Cola and Costco Wholesale. Tech was decidedly the laggard.

Walmart joined the small club of companies with market capitalizations above $1 trillion just this week. The shares, however, dipped slightly on Feb. 5 and, at $127.55, are up 14.5% this year, including 8.1% in February.

How long can this tumble last?

Wall Street, always an optimistic tribe, will argue, correctly, a correction happens regularly at least once a year. (There have been 37 declines of 10% or more since 1945.)

So, if the pullback gets that big, it would be the year's first. 2025 saw just one, in April, in the wake of President Trump's tariff proposal.

Futures trading late Feb. 5 suggests another slump on Feb.6. However, the overnight markets have been less accurate lately in signaling how the U.S. market will open.

Since before the Great Recession in 2008-2009, I have watched the relative strength levels of stocks, which offers a view of a stock's strength. They're helpful in judging indexes, interest rates and commodity prices.

Rule of thumb: An RSI level above 70 suggests a stock is overbought; in the eighties or higher, look for a selloff. Below 30 suggests oversold.

In this case, I looked at the RSI for Microsoft. It was at 24.54 at Thursday's close, according to Wall Street Journal data. (It had reached nearly 80 in the spring of 2025.)

The company is very profitable. It has a higher bond rating than the U.S. government, throws off lots of cash, and has manageable debt. And it has a wide competitive moat.

Thursday's reading suggests Microsoft shares are seriously oversold. Sooner or later (probably sooner), a rebound will erupt in Microsoft and many others.

Unless something really bad happens.

Tesla forced to kill iconic design feature over new safety rules

Tony Owusu — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 15:47:00 GMT

A decade ago, seeing a Tesla on the road was quite a sight.

If the curvy, oblong-shaped vehicles didn't catch your attention, the lack of sound output from the electric motor, or the keyless entry options, certainly did.

Speaking of keyless entry, Tesla's hidden door handles were also one of the vehicle's intriguing features when they first hit the streets. But since then, they have proven to be pretty dangerous, leading the largest EV market in the world to ban them.

In September, Tesla admitted it had made a mistake designing its hidden door handles and confirmed its plan to make changes.

Longtime Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen told news services on Sept. 17 that Tesla is looking to combine its electronic and manual door-release mechanisms in an effort to make the handles more intuitive for occupants “in a panic situation.”

Von Holzhausen’s comments came less than 24 hours after the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) opened an investigation into the door-handle mechanism on about 174,000 Tesla Model Ys from the 2021 model year.

The NHTSA stated that it is in the second phase of its three-step process to issue a recall for the popular Tesla Model Y due to an electrical issue that could cause the door handle to fail.

In the case of a crash and a loss of 12 V power, first responders can't open the door from the outside. While this type of incident is rare, it has resulted in at least 15 deaths.

This week, Chinese regulators went a couple of steps further than their American counterparts. They banned the door handles completely.

Tesla will have to find a new design for its door handles in a few years.

Photo by Bloomberg on Getty Images

China bans the hidden electric door handles Tesla uses

This week, China banned electronic retractable door handles on all new car models introduced after January 1, 2027.

The new regulations stipulate that there must be a physical door handle with a recessed space at least 2.4 inches wide, 0.8 inches tall, and 1 inch deep for a hand to operate.

In the event of a crash in which the airbags deploy or the battery catches fire, the vehicle's locking mechanism must also allow the non-impact side doors to be opened without tools.

Each door must also have mechanical releases inside that an occupant can easily find.

Carmakers with existing non-door-handle designs approved by regulators will have an extended grace period until January 1, 2029, to redesign their doors.

Tesla isn't the only car company that will have to rethink its vehicle doors, reports Carsales, as hidden door handles have exploded in popularity since Tesla helped bring them to the fore.

Tesla sued over hidden door handles

Tesla design chief Franz von Holzhausen's comments about changing the company's door handles after all these years didn't come unprompted.

About a year ago, five people died in Verona, Wisconsin, after the Tesla Model S they were riding in crashed into a tree.

Jeffrey Bauer, 54, and Michelle Bauer, 55, were passengers in the vehicle, and their children claim the car's door handle mechanism trapped them, preventing them from opening the doors after the Tesla crashed.

According to the lawsuit, a fire in the car’s lithium-ion battery pack caused the electronic door systems to fail. The plaintiffs argue that Tesla was aware of this potential risk based on earlier fires, but has failed to implement the changes von Holzhausen suggested in September.

The lawsuit, filed in Dane County Circuit Court by the Bauers’ children, said that passengers in the rear were particularly vulnerable following the crash.

A nearby homeowner told 911 she heard screaming coming from the vehicle as “Tesla’s design choices created a highly foreseeable risk: that occupants who survived a crash would remain trapped inside a burning vehicle,” the complaint says.

The Bauers died the day following the crash.

Tesla door handles face NHTSA scrutiny

Tesla door handles can fail from the inside, but the NHTSA probe will also examine the mechanism from the outside.

The NHTSA said it is investigating Tesla door handles after receiving reports that parents were unable to open their vehicles' doors, leaving children trapped inside.

“The most commonly reported scenarios involved parents exiting the vehicle after a drive cycle in order to remove a child from the back seat or placing a child in the back seat before starting a drive cycle. In those events, the parents were unable to reopen a door to regain access to the vehicle,” the NHTSA said.

The NHTSA has received more than 140 consumer complaints about doors on various Tesla models getting stuck, not opening, or malfunctioning since 2018.

At least four parents in the NHTSA investigation were forced to break the vehicle’s back window to access it.

The NHTSA says its initial review suggests the issue arises when the electronic door locks don’t receive sufficient voltage from the vehicle.

The agency reports that repair invoices indicate the affected vehicles had their low-voltage batteries replaced after the incidents. Still, none of the owners reported seeing a low-voltage battery warning before the door handles failed.

In September, Bloomberg reported that Tesla’s fully concealed door handles could be dangerous if the vehicle lost power after a crash.

“Tesla engineers went wildly in the direction of automation and overlooked what happens to the human body after a crash,” Charles Mauro, founder of Mauro Usability Science, a New York consulting firm that specializes in human factors engineering, told Bloomberg.

“Musk’s idea is a computer on wheels, but the design of the door locks was overlooked.”

Veteran analyst delivers surprise verdict on Tesla, Nvidia

Moz Farooque — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 19:03:00 GMT

Wall Street has effectively spent the past three years obsessing over chatbots, prompts, and large language models.

However, veteran tech analyst Dan Ives is making the case that investors are looking in the wrong place.

Ives feels the real money from AI will eventually come from machines that can move, see, and act in the physical world. That said, the two frontrunners for him are Tesla (TSLA) and Nvidia (NVDA).

He hails the two as indispensable pillars of the fast-emerging physical AI space, a shift he’s often referred to as the new industrial revolution.

Clearly, that’s a big pivot from the traditional AI narrative to which investors have grown accustomed.

However, a change in the AI trade is in order, and Bank of America analyst Andrew Obin recently talked about a major Nvidia-linked stock market setup taking shape.

Ives is in a similar boat, saying that the real value will show up when AI escapes the data center and starts doing the heavy lifting in the real economy.

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives says Tesla and Nvidia anchor the emerging physical AI market boom.

Photo by Woohae Cho on Getty Images

How Wall Street’s price targets stack up for these AI giants

Nvidia price targets (current price: $191)

Morgan Stanley: $250 price target, about 31% upside
Bank of America: $275 price target, roughly 44% upside
Bernstein: $275 price target, roughly 44% upside
Goldman Sachs: $250 price target, about 31% upside
JPMorgan: $250 price target, about 31% upside

Tesla price targets (current price: $430)

Piper Sandler: $500 price target, about 16% upside
Morgan Stanley: $415 price target, about 4% downside
Barclays: $360 price target, roughly 16% downside
UBS: $352 price target, about 18% downside
Jefferies: $300 price target, roughly 30% downside

Tesla’s autonomy push is reshaping its business model

Tesla’s leap toward autonomy feels more like a fundamental business-model shift at this point.

Calling an EV car company a tech platform sounds odd, but that’s exactly where it’s headed. Tesla’s future lies in efficiently monetizing its whopping installed base with recurring, high-margin software.

At the heart is the full self-driving (supervised) offering, which is now priced at $99 per month. Per its recent quarterly showing, as reported by Inside EVs, Tesla reported a mighty impressive 1.1 million active FSD subscriptions, up 38% year over year.

Penetration should rise over time, with U.S. insurers such as Lemonade helping provide a tailwind. Also, with capex expected to exceed $20 billion, the shift toward AI and autonomy will accelerate further.

Ives told CNBC that FSD is at an inflection point.

He sees FSD adoption jumping from 12% to 50%, calling 2026 a “golden year” spearheaded by FSD, Cybercabs, and Optimus robots.

Moreover, Ives maintains a buy rating on Tesla stock and a $600 base-case price target, implying nearly 44% upside and an $800 bull-case target.

Nvidia versus Tesla stock price returns

YTD: Nvidia +2.48% vs. Tesla -4.29%
1-year: Nvidia +53.33% vs. Tesla +7.53%
3-year: Nvidia +897.44% vs. Tesla +158.26%
5-year: Nvidia +1,371.39% vs. Tesla +62.72%
Source: Seeking Alpha

Nvidia sits at the center of the physical AI stack

Nvidia is looking to further strengthen its position in the AI space by effectively becoming the operating layer for machines that interact with the physical economy.

The data center engine that Nvidia dominates is at the heart of it all, powering everything from robotics training to industrial twins to autonomous systems.

More Nvidia:

For perspective, the AI bellwether recently posted its Q3 results, posting $57 billion in sales, including $51.2 billion from data centers (up 66% year over year).

Moreover, Nvidia’s looking to move deeper into the “embodied AI” flywheel.

Nvidia uses powerful tools like Isaac Sim to allow businesses to train and test robots in virtual worlds before real-world deployment. Moreover, “brains” for humanoid robots through projects such as GR00T are being developed, potentially ushering in a new era for robotics.

That thesis even extends to autonomy.

Autonomous sales currently account for a much smaller share of Nvidia’s sales than data centers, but it’s a fast-growing segment.

Nvidia generated $592 million in the quarter, up a superb 32% year over year, spearheaded by Nvidia’s DRIVE platform, as well as a partnership with Uber aimed at scaling Level 4-ready networks beginning in 2027.

Ives says Huang is the “godfather of AI,” framing it as the bedrock beneath physical AI that's at least four to five years ahead of rivals.

SpaceX, xAI merger sparks blunt 5-word Palantir billionaire take

Moz Farooque — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 18:37:39 GMT

“I don’t ever second-guess Elon.”

That’s Palantir (PLTR) co-founder Joe Lonsdale’s sharp take on how he views the growing chatter around a potential SpaceX–xAI tie-up.

Though he feels there’s substance to the idea, he isn’t rushing to the conclusion that it is the endgame for Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk’s empire.

For a little context, Lonsdale is a tech entrepreneur and investor with a serious pedigree in areas like defense and AI.

He co-founded Palantir Technologies and currently runs venture capital firm 8VC, which manages more than $6 billion in capital. According to Forbes, his net worth is estimated at a whopping $3 billion.

That said, rockets, satellites, data, and computing are obvious areas of overlap. AI is fast-evolving into infrastructure, and if we marry that concept with the perhaps-aggressive space and connectivity platform, the combined benefits are extraordinary.

Nevertheless, Lonsdale, despite the bullishness on xAI and Musk’s acumen, is stopping short of endorsing an all-in mega-merger.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and xAI spark merger talk; Joe Lonsdale says collaboration, not consolidation, matters.

Photo by Bloomberg on Getty Images

Why SpaceX merging with xAI is suddenly on the table

SpaceX has reportedly discussed merging with or scooping up xAI ahead of a potential SpaceX IPO.

The logic being floated around is that Starlink offers an enormous distribution pipeline, helping xAI scale up quickly. On top of that, over a longer time frame, there’s plenty of chatter around potential space-based compute ideas linked to NASA and Starship.

The numbers being reported behind the SpaceX-xAI merger

Following a recent insider share sale, SpaceX was last valued near $800 billion, with IPO expectations close to $1 trillion, according to Reuters.
Reports suggest SpaceX could raise $50 billion at a valuation exceeding $1.5 trillion in an IPO, with an expected date later in 2026 (near June).
xAI recently raised $20 billion at a valuation of$230 billion in a Series E funding round.
The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI as part of a fundraising round.

Lonsdale’s “synergy” pitch, with a big caveat

Lonsdale isn’t one to second-guess Musk, but that doesn’t really mean he’s buying into the idea of merging all of his businesses together.

He’s acknowledging the SpaceX–xAI synergy, but feels focus tends to beat scale.

SpaceX and xAI are moving in tandem and are clearly the picks of Musk’s business empire at this point.

For perspective, Musk’s ambitions span a sprawling web of businesses that often overlap in technology, data, and ambition.

Tesla: Musk’s public crown jewel, covering EVs, energy storage, solar, autonomous driving software, and a growing push into "physical AI" with robotics like Optimus
SpaceX: The private rocket giant behind Falcon, Starship, and Starlink that’s revolutionizing an emerging space economy and has long-term plans for Mars
xAI: Musk’s promising AI venture behind the popular Grok chatbot and large language models, which also owns X (formerly Twitter), as it goes toe-to-toe against the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic
Neuralink: A neurotechnology company developing implantable chips geared toward cognitive enhancement
The Boring Company: Musk’s infrastructure play that’s involved in digging transport tunnels to ease urban congestion at a lower cost

That said, Lonsdale believes SpaceX’s mission-driven engineering culture feeds directly into xAI’s insatiable appetite for compute.

Particularly with xAI, he believes the company is “growing really fast” this year, with Musk in the thick of things and sweating details.

However, with a potential “merge everything,” Lonsdale hit the brakes with a founder’s bias.

In his experience, he argues it’s best to keep teams separate when building scale, where several focused businesses often work much better than squeezing everything under a single roof.

Inside SpaceX’s current economics and cash engine

SpaceX is now running a real, growing business.

Reports suggest it generated an eye-catching $15 to $16 billion in sales last year, with nearly $8 billion in EBITDA, which is an excellent result for a business that’s still shelling out millions for Starship and its upcoming systems.

The primary growth engine for it is Starlink, which accounts for an estimated 50% to 80% of its revenue. What reportedly began as a side project, satellite internet has effectively become the company’s financial backbone.

More Tech Stocks:

For perspective, SpaceX has launched more than 9,500 Starlink satellites since 2019 and is currently serving over 9 million users globally, Reuters reported. This positions it as the largest satellite operator.

Nifty acquisitions, such as the $19 billion spent on wireless spectrum by EchoStar, are paving the way for even bigger sales opportunities with direct-to-device connectivity.

If SpaceX can achieve scale, it’s sitting in a total addressable market of immense size.

For perspective, McKinsey & Company forecasts the global space economy could potentially surge to $1.8 trillion by 2035, up from $630 billion in 2023.

Specifically looking at satellite internet, Grand View Research forecasts the market could reach an incredible $22.4 billion by the end of the current decade.

xAI looks legit on paper, but risky on the balance sheet

Lonsdale spoke with Fox Business about xAI gaining a ton of traction last year, and the numbers suggest he wasn’t just talking vibes.

For starters, an internal update puts Grok's monthly user base at nearly 64 million as of September 2025, per The Information. Though that figure trails Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude by a massive margin, it’s clear that Grok isn’t a niche experiment anymore.

On the performance front, Grok impresses as well.

On the crowdsourced Text Arena leaderboard, which aggregates millions of blind head-to-head model comparisons, Grok-4.1-thinking ranked second, backed by about 5.1 million votes as of late January 2026.

Real-world traction is also stacking up with some head-turning deals.

Pentagon’s Chief Digital and AI Office awarded xAI a contract with a whopping ceiling of up to $200 million for developing agentic AI workflows, CNBC noted.
The U.S. General Services Administration signed a major OneGov deal, which makes Grok available to agencies for 42 cents per organization through March 2027.
xAI also announced an agreement with Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN in designing hyperscale GPU data centers while deploying Grok nationwide.

However, where the story breaks down is primarily economics.

According to a Reuters report, xAI generated $107 million in quarterly sales, but bled $1.46 billion in losses, while burning a worrying $7.8 billion in just nine months as it looks to scale up.

Stock Market Today, Jan. 29: Dow, Russell 2000 escape Microsoft fallout; Apple reports after bell

Noah Weidner — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 15:19:23 GMT

This live blog is refreshed periodically throughout the day with the latest updates from the market.To find the latest Stock Market Today threads, click here.

Happy Thursday. This is TheStreet’s Stock Market Today for Jan. 29, 2026. You can follow the latest updates on the market here in our daily live blog.

Update: 4:35 p.m. ET

Apple Earnings Are In

Apple's earnings have landed. Here are the details:

Revenue: $143.756 billion, +16% (est. $138.48 billion)
iPhone Revenue: $85.269 billion (estimates were $78.65 billion) Services: $30.013 billion Wearables, Home, Accessories: $11.493 billion (est. $12.04 billion) iPad Revenue: $8.6 billion (estimated. $8.13 billion) Mac Revenue: $8.39 billion (est. $8.95 billion)
Earnings Per Share: $2.84 (est. $2.67)

The results are a handy beat for the company, made possible by the "best-ever quarter" for iPhone, per CEO Tim Cook. Cook also gave a nod to the firm's strong showing in Greater China, where the company pulled in $25.53 billion in sales, up 38% year-over-year. (Analysts were only looking for $21.32 billion from that market.)

The company's Services division also graduated to a new record for revenue, surpassing $30 billion, up 14% year-over-year. However, products remained the faraway leader in the company's revenue mix, grossing $113.74 billion.

The only low light was Wearables, which disappointed amid supply chain problems with the new AirPods Pro 3.

Apple stock jumped over 1% after the bell.

Update: 4:00 p.m. ET

Closing Bell

The U.S. markets are now closed. Last quarter, it was Meta that fell over ten percent after its earnings report. Today, it's Microsoft. (And ironically, Meta is up 10% today.)

Yesterday's biggest earnings report was defining factor in today's trading. Although it largely met the mark, the company's report apparently left Wall Street wanting a little more. The stock declined 10%, perhaps owing to its decline to its largest quarter of AI spending.

We reflected yesterday, in brief, about how both Microsoft and Meta spent a lot of time talking about their AI capex. Microsoft remarked at its record level of spend, while Meta warned investors that it would spend more this year as it pursues superintelligence. Even Tesla (-3%), which declined today after a small pop yesterday, was sort of beating around this topic as the company chose to invest in Xai, even after shareholders voted against such an effort.

For all three, it's the promise of what could be. Some firms have more to prove than others, but the story is all the same. The spending on AI, of course, calls for a repricing of some equities. Yes, there is lots of revenue and growth, but if the breakeven or payoff isn't coming as quick, then when?

As a result, U.S. large cap indexes lagged today. At one point, the Nasdaq Composite was down nearly 2%, while the S&P 500 declined over 1%. They finished out the day down 0.72% and 0.13% each, while the Dow (+0.11%) managed to muster a last-minute comeback, despite the nearly ten percent decline offsetting gains in the index's other 29 holdings.

Small caps also managed to pull out a similar comeback today, with the Russell 2000 (+0.05%) adding a few bips as smaller, growthy companies were able to stand up in the face of Big Tech's mixed day. This test continues this evening with Apple earnings.

Update: 1:40 p.m. ET

Midday Update

Midway through the day, the tech sector is still experiencing as memorable a drawdown as one can remember. With Microsoft (-12%) off more than ten percent and sympathetic software names following its lead. ServiceNow (-12.25%) Salesforce (-7.11%), Oracle (-4.36%), and Palantir(-4.28%) are just a handful of the S&P 500-listed firms facing a haircut.

As a result, the Nasdaq (-1.3%) and S&P 500 (-0.60%) are still facing steeper declines than the 30-strong Dow (-0.28%), which also has Microsoft to blame for offsetting gains from the rest of the index. What's more, small caps have shown some resilience in the face of today's tech tumble; the Russell 2000 (-0.40%) is off less than half a percentage point.

That's not to say there aren't winners, though: Southwest Airlines (+16.76%), which reported yesterday under the noise of Big Tech earnings, is the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 today after forecasting a bump in 2026 profits after it recently discontinued 'bags fly free' and added extra legroom seating. Meta (+10.29%) isn't far behind, among the market's best-performing stocks today, up more than ten percent. Payment processor Mastercard (+3.4%) is up more than three percent after its A.M. earnings call, lifting shares of competitor Visa (+1.38%), too.

The Movers

Let's zoom out on the whole universe of U.S. stocks. At last look, 56.8% (3,148) issues were in decline, against 40.4% (2,241) advancing. In our daily midday movers list, we seek to ID the biggest stories on market by looking at the top and bottom 20 stocks with at least a $2 billion market cap. Here are your midday winners and losers today:

Winners

Losers

Update: 9:46 a.m. ET

Opening Bell

The U.S. market is now opened for the day. This morning, the Nasdaq (-1.62%) is off over one and a half percentage points; the S&P 500 (-0.76%) is off closer to one.

What gives? Well, it's the first trade since three Big Tech earnings reported their big earnings last night. Although all three companies met expectations, investors in particular were disappointed with Microsoft (-9.96%), which is down nearly 10%. They also shrugged off results from Tesla (-1.9%), even though the report saw an initial pop.

A common theme was AI spending; it was also a problem for Meta (+8.58%), which expects a larger sum of spending in 2026 as it continues its superintelligence efforts. The only difference is that Meta largely exceeded investor expectations.

Here's the S&P 500 this morning, which is whipsawing in either direction after yesterday's earnings:

That leaves just the Dow (-0.22%) and Russell 2000 (-0.28%) close to where they were yesterday. They are in position to recover today's trade; the majority of U.S. equities are trading up this morning, meaning it's just the weight of Big Tech that is holding down the market.

Speaking of "weight" and "holding it down", continuous futures in gold (+3.10% to $5,463.70) and silver (+3.2% to $117.465) continued to rally into the evening and early morning, only paling back in the last few minutes by a percentage point.

The 10Y Treasury is little moved; down about 0.8 bips at 4.243%.

Here is what else is on today's docket:

Earnings Today: Apple, Visa, Mastercard

Continuing the 'Big Tech' earnings theme today, tech giant Apple, payment processors Visa and Mastercard, and industrial firm Caterpillar will be among today's largest earnings reports. Here are the earnings which were part of the A.M. lot:

You can see the morning earnings reactions on the far right --- some are obviously steeper than others, like SAP SE (-16%) or Lockheed Martin (+6.43%).

And after the bell, we'll have even more reports to square. Here are the earnings coming this evening:

Economic Events: Jobless Claims, Exports/Imports, Factory Orders

With the FOMC meeting in the rear view, today will see a slower day for economic data. Jobless Claims, Exports/Imports data, and Factory Orders will be the standout reports. Here are the various events that are due out today, including already-released data (updated at 10:10 a.m. ET):

Tesla plans Mag 7 spending spree analyst calls 'difficult to justify'

Tony Owusu — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:37:00 GMT

After initially rising after hours following its fourth-quarter earnings release, Tesla shares started off Thursday morning, Jan. 29, in what has become familiar territory over the past month: the red.

Tesla shares were down 1.3% at last check after the company reported falling deliveries for the second consecutive year and falling revenue for the first time ever.

Tesla Q4 deliveries

Q4 Model 3 and Y deliveries: 406,585
Q4 all other models deliveries: 11,642
Q4 Model 3/Y production: 422,652
Q4 all other models production: 11,706

Tesla reported fourth-quarter earnings of 50 cents per share, topping analyst estimates of 45 cents per share, on revenue of $24.9 billion vs. analyst expectations of $24.79 billion. However, the company reported $25.7 billion in the year-ago quarter, with auto sales falling 11%.

Full-year revenue dropped to $94.8 billion from $97.7 billion as Tesla rode the wave of consumer demand that forced consumers to rush to dealerships to take advantage of the expiring $7,500 government tax credit, then abandon EV sales after it expired at the end of September.

Vehicle deliveries dropped 16% in the quarter and fell 8.6% year over year.

Tesla shares are down more than 5% this week and nearly 8% over the past four weeks as investors have been anticipating the down quarter.

However, the company also unveiled a radical plan to increase profits down the road, which includes significant spending now. Analysts at BNP Paribas aren't sure that's the right tactic.

BNP Paribas analysts are skeptical of Tesla's spending plan.

Photo by Pool on Getty Images

Tesla $20 billion capex plan isn't sustainable, BNP Paribas says

Tesla is part of the high-volume, large market cap cohort known as the Magnificent 7. The Mag 7 includes tech industry stalwarts including Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia.

Those other companies tend to spend big on capital expenditures because new tech is their industry's lifeblood, and new tech takes research money to build.

Tesla, which is still ostensibly a car company, doesn't have that same issue; however, the company did just unveil a plan to discontinue 40% of its driving products in order to spend more time and energy on future tech like robotics and artificial intelligence.

Tesla is mothballing the Model S and the Model X by the second quarter and using the production space to build Optimus robots. And it is spending $20 billion to do it.

Tesla spent just $8.5 billion on capex in 2025, so more than doubling it during a time of falling revenue has analysts at BNP Paribas intrigued.

"Tesla attributes the massive uplift in spend toward the need ot ramp 6 production lines (refinery, LVP, Cybercarb, Semi, new Megafactory, and Optimus/Fremont), coupled with incremental AI training investments to support Optimus," BNPP's note states.

While the firm notes that the $20 billion spend isn't out of the ordinary for Mag 7 companies, "we do believe Tesla has meaningfully less bandwidth to sustain such levels of spending vs peers."

Tesla's implied negative free cash flow of $8.6 billion makes it the only Mag 7 company slated to burn cash this year.

"If this pattern were to sustain, Tesla would naturally be forced to raise additional capital. During the 4Q25 call, the Co. pointed to the possibility of leveraging future robotaxi cash flow to back debt," BNPP's note states. "However, we're currently forecasting Tesla's first year of positive Robotaxi EBITDA in 2029, which we'd expect to complicate this funding option alternative."

Tesla can't keep up with the Mag 7 in 2026

Despite 90% of its revenue coming from electric vehicles, Tesla CEO Elon Musk insists Tesla isn't a car company.

It's more of a consumer tech company like Microsoft, Google, and Apple. So in that way, $20 billion in capital spending isn't out of the ordinary.

However, Musk's claim that Tesla is more like a tech company doesn't mean its balance sheet aligns with that assessment.

Of the rest of the Mag 7, only Nvidia and Apple plan to spend less on capex in 2026 than Tesla. Those are also the only two companies with a lower capex-to-2025 cash ratio.

But in terms of capex as a percentage of operating cash flow, Tesla is far and away the leader, at nearly 170%. The next highest is Meta, which is at 87% of operating cash flow. Tesla is also the only Mag 7 company with negative free cash flow.

"Tesla bulls might initially want to interpret this news as further conviction behind the company's robust, AI-led future... But what we know is, we're already modeling an extremely bright future for Tesla across both Optimus and Robotaxis, and yet we fail to see supportive valuation beyond our $1 trillion price target," BNPP's note said.

"Now, with real cash burn most certainly in store for this year, and likely multiple years, the company's discounted cash flow valuation becomes that much more difficult to justify as future cash flows take on even greater risk."

BNP Paribas reiterated its underperform rating and $313 price target on Tesla shares.

Tesla was trading at $423.24 at last check Thursday, Jan. 29.

Stock Market Today, Jan. 28: Earnings from Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla follow S&P milestone

Noah Weidner — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:24:47 GMT

Happy Wednesday. This is TheStreet's Stock Market Today for Jan. 28, 2026. You can follow the latest updates on the market here in our daily live blog.

Update: 4:00 p.m.

Big Tech Earnings

Big Tech earnings are arriving now from Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla. The results below are pulled from LSEG, including estimates where relevant in parenthesis. Here are some of the initial results:

Microsoft

Microsoft, today's biggest report, was able to best revenue expectations thanks to a 39% year-over-year increase in Azure cloud sales, surpassing already-optimistic forecasts from analysts.

Revenue: $81.27 billion, +17% year-over-year (vs. $80.266 billion)
Adj. EPS: $4.14 (vs. $3.97)

However, beating expectations by a small margin, the company's stock is off over 5% in afterhours, likely a product of higher AI spending. The firm revealed that its spending reached a record high in the latest quarter at $37.5 billion.

That excess spending might be an industry-wide theme that could force a repricing of many AI-adjacent trades (including, hint hint, Meta.) However, it's also likely a point of frustration, as investors might be seeing exciting growth, but not at the margins that were expected.

Tesla

Tesla beat profit and revenue expectations in its earnings report. The news sent shares of the firm rising 3.55% in after hours after an initial decline:

Revenue: $24.90 billion, -3% YoY (vs. estimate of $24.79 billion)
Adjusted EPS: 50c (vs. 45c)

As has become increasingly common, the company emphasized future product development, namely on its Optimus robot, RoboTaxi product, and utility-grade battery system. The firm's diversification away from being a pure-play electric vehicle producer has come amid global pressures on the auto market.

One of the big stories that come in tandem with these results is a tie-up with Elon Musk's other AI venture: Xai. The company will invest $2 billion in the firm and cooperate on some "potential AI collaborations."

Update: 4:00 p.m.

Market Close

The U.S. stock market is now closed. What is expected to follow is arguably one of the economic events of the season --- no, not an FOMC or a jobs report, but the results from some of the most valuable firms in the world.

Today will live in history, at least for the S&P 500. The index touched 7,000 out of the gate this morning, just hours after European semiconductor giant ASML Holdings announced positive earnings, inducing confidence Big Tech will follow suit with results of their own. In just a few moments, we'll be tearing into the specifics from Microsoft, Meta, and Tesla.

Of course, before we get there, we have to cover the second most important event of the day: the largely uneventful Federal Reserve decision. As expected, the central bank chose to leave interest rates unchanged, citing unemployment and still-elevated inflation for a hold in the policy rate, which was left in a range from 3.50% to 3.75% after a 10-2 vote. The two dissenters, Governors Waller and recent Trump appointee Miran, both voted in favor of a 25 basis point cut.

In a largely unremarkable press conference to follow, Fed Chair Jerome Powell declined to answer "political" questions about Trump, the transition to his successor, recent Dollar volatility, and others. He did, however, answer a big question: rate cuts when? In short: likely not until he's gone.

That was the pretense to today's biggest move among benchmarks; the small cap-focused Russell 2000 declined nearly half a percentage point today, along with 65%-or-so of U.S. issues. However, large caps were left mostly unscathed as investors awaited Big Tech's big results.

The Nasdaq (+0.17%) added a few bips courtesy of strength from semiconductor and computer equipment stocks, while the Dow Jones (+0.02%) and S&P 500 (-0.01%) were mostly flat, dragged down by weakness in health care, industrials, and consumer-exposed equities.

Update: 2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. ET

Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged

As widely expected, the Federal Reserve kept the U.S. benchmark rate unchanged in a 10-2 vote. Rates were widely expected to remain fixed in the 3.50% to 3.75% range.

In its changed statement, the Fed cited a steadying unemployment rate and still-elevated inflation for the decision, while offering little additional context for when rates might fall this year. And, as expected, the two dissents came from Governors Waller and Miran, who voted in support of a 25 basis point cut.

On the news, small caps in the Russell 2000 (-0.40%) sank, while the S&P 500 (-0.11%), Dow (-0.02%), S&P 500 (-0.11%), and Nasdaq (+0.07%) declined from earlier levels. We'll see how that plays out here after the press conference.

Highlights from the Press Conference

A press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell followed at 2:30 p.m. ET. These are the highlights:

Powell says that three consecutive rate cuts (0.75%) have left policy in appropriate stance; in the range of 'neutral.'
Government shutdown likely affected fourth quarter growth; should reverse in the coming quarter.
Unemployment rate is seen stabilizing, but hiring, openings, and wage growth remain tepid; weaker immigration is a factor.
Powell says that inflation "remains elevated" compared with 2% goal, largely because tariffs are affecting goods.

In response to questions from the press:

In re: attending the Lisa Cook Supreme Court case: Powell attended as it was perhaps the "most important case" in the central bank's history.
Powell did not answer questions about the Trump case, whether he would stay on, recent Dollar volatility, or the transition period to the new Fed Chair.
In re: future rate cuts: Powell says that there has been a clear improvement in growth, inflation performed as expected, and the labor market data showed evidence of stabilization. They have not made future determinations.
In re: where is neutral: Powell notes that rates are "within the plausible range of estimates."
Would rate hikes be a possibility? That isn't anybody's base case, but that isn't where people's expectations are right now.
Powell answered a question about Fed independence and its importance, saying he was "committed" to it, along with colleagues.
Powell adds that "part-time for economic reasons" has ticked up, implying more Americans are taking part-time jobs because labor availability has struggled.
On balance: It's hard to say if the risks are balanced.
On AI supplanting entry level work and jobs: "... Every technological wave will eliminate some jobs and make some other jobs ... We ask if this will be different and we don't know... In macroeconomic terms, it's very hard."
On geopolitical risk: "For us, it's around energy [oil] and through all the turmoil, oil prices have come down --- so we don't see much. Longer than that, it's trade and our economy has pulled through pretty well [with big changes in trade policy.] What was implemented is significantly less than what was announced; a great deal of countries have not retaliated, and many of the prices haven't been passed through [to the consumer.]"
Advice for successor: "One is stay out of elected politics; don't get pulled in, don't do it. Another is our window into democratic accountability is Congress; it isn't a passive burden for us to go to Congress and talk to people. If you want democratic legitimacy, you earn it through interactions with our elected overseers. Last, it's easy to attack gov't institutions ... there isn't a better cadre dedicated to the public wellbeing than work at the Fed."
On gold and silver: "I don't take much of a message macroeconomically."

At the close of the conference, the Nasdaq (+0.20%), Dow (+0.01%), and S&P 500 (+0.01%). The Russell 2000 (-0.24%) continued its declines as commentary around future rate cuts were relegated for more political questions.

Update: 1:35 p.m. ET

Midday Update

Halfway through the day, stocks have paled back from gains, likely in anticipation of the Fed press conference and the after hours tech earnings. That has left the Nasdaq (+0.13%) and Dow (+0.01%) as the sole indexes in the green for the moment, while the S&P 500 (-0.09%) and Russell 2000 (-0.30%) are in the red.

Speaking of red, 61.7% (3,420) of U.S. issues are declining right now against 35.2% (1,949) that are advancing.

Among the notable declines intraday, healthcare stocks are now getting hammered --- they're now worst off among S&P 500 sectors, followed by industrials, which are also flashing a hot red hue. Meanwhile, semiconductors and computer hardware companies are still on the ups. Here's the S&P 500 again (remember her from earlier?)

Also coming up in just a few minutes, the Fed is widely expected to keep interest rates flat, while Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to deliver remarks which might offer additional color on the future ahead for Fed policy. The decisions of the Fed might differ from President Donald Trump, who is expected to announce the next Fed Chair in the coming days. That announcement is expected out at 2 p.m. ET.

Midday Movers

Here are today's midday movers, which includes the top and bottom 20 performers on the markets with at least a $2 billion market cap:

Winners

Among top performers, Applied Optoelectronics (+22.55%) is atop the market today, joined by Seagate Technology (+20.42%), Stride (+18.78%), and Intuitive Machines (+12.65%).

Intel Corp (+10.72%) is also extending its comeback trade after a relatively disappointing earnings report.

Losers

On the other end of the market, Carvana (-19.63%) is once again being attacked by a short seller; this time, they allege that the company overstated its 2023-24 earnings by over $1 billion. This isn't the first time the company has been targeted by short sellers and investigators.

Following behind, LG Display Co (-10.09%) fell after reporting earnings results, which saw revenues decline 8% year-over-year. VF Corp. also reported earnings; by contrast, its results were pretty positive, but it warned that tariffs would weigh on the company's quarterly results.

Update: 9:59 a.m. ET

Opening Bell

The U.S. stock market is now open. Continuing the recent pattern of 'tech leading the way', the Nasdaq (+0.59%) is out front this morning, joined by an S&P 500 (+0.28%) which briefly surpassed 7,000; a milestone for the index and yet another new intraday high for the index.

They owe their morning optimism to excitement around ASML Holdings' (-0.80%) overnight earnings report, which stirred excitement about the state of the AI boom. This afternoon, a number of high-profile tech reports will be joining in the chorus, hopefully striking a bullish tone (more on that below.)

However, both indexes have since pulled back a touch. Perhaps the whole day will end up being one big 'wait and see' when it's all said and done. At the same time, the Dow (+0.00%) is unmoved today, while the Russell 2000 (-0.04%) is a touch lower after the first few minutes of trading.

Heatmap: S&P 500

Speaking of which, let's zoom in on the all-powerful S&P 500. This morning, the pockets of green seem to be coming out of the semiconductor industry --- again. Chipmakers Intel (+9.43%), Texas Instruments (+8.46%), and Micron (+5.52%) are getting their bread this morning.

At the same time, some of the megacap tech are more restrained ahead of the big reports. Industrials, healthcare, and consumer defensive are even more mixed by contrast. Here's a look at the S&P 500's heatmap after the first 15 minutes of trading (9:45 a.m. ET):

Dollar Dominion?

This morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated in an interview that the U.S. would not intervene in the Japanese Yen as first reported.

This came just hours after President Donald Trump sounded comfortable about the recent decline in the Dollar at a press conference last night; call it a President Soft Dollar, Treasury Dollar Dominion attitude.

In response, the Dollar Index added 0.04%, sitting at 96.26. The Yen fell 1%.

Ahead of this afternoon's Fed decision, the 10Y Treasury added 3 bips, rising to 4.225%. The 20Y and 30Y are 3.4 bips and 2.7 bips higher at 4.823% and 4.861%.

Despite the recent moves in the U.S. currency, the moves in precious metals have been more profound. Even after a small chip in its armor after the announcement, continuous contracts for gold (+3.64% to $5,267.70) and silver (+7.12% to $113.5) rose overnight.

Here is what else is on the docket for today:

Earnings Today: Microsoft, Meta, Tesla

Last night, semiconductor equipment giant ASML Holdings reported strong earnings, but announced layoffs of staff in both the Netherlands and U.S. in a cost-cutting bid. Following this morning were a wide array of earnings from other domestic firms, including GE Vernova, AT&T, and Starbucks:

However, the real party won't start until after the closing bell today. A wide array of big tech earnings from Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, and others is slated for this afternoon. Excitement has already drummed up the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500:

Economic Events Today

Today, investors are expected to see the Fed's interest rate decision after the two-day FOMC meeting; it's widely expected to be unmoved.

At the same time, there will be an array of other minute reports today, including a swath of housing data from the Mortgage Bankers' Association this morning, plus refreshed EIA stocks and production data.

Here is the list of economic events: