Tesla's stock price rose for 13 consecutive days starting from the agreement with Ford Motor to share fast charging stations. Analysts say that Ford Motor and General Motors may bring in $2 billion in annual charging revenue, which has increased Tesla's valuation by hundreds of billions. Tesla also soared in sync with AI darling Nvidia, and Tesla did not hesitate to say, "Compared with ChatGPT, autonomous driving is a more difficult artificial intelligence problem to solve."
On Friday, June 16th, Tesla stopped its two-day decline and rose more than 1%. As of this Tuesday, Tesla had recorded 13 consecutive trading days of gains, the longest period since the company's IPO in the United States. Friday was the 14th day of gains in 16 trading days.
Tesla's "stock price takeoff" began on May 24th. Coincidentally, on May 25th, Ford Motor and Tesla announced an agreement that buyers of Ford Motor electric vehicles will be able to use Tesla's supercharging network from early 2024 and enjoy fast charging services on the road.
In the midst of Tesla's record-breaking streak, another American traditional car giant, General Motors, announced a similar fast-charging service sharing agreement with Tesla on June 8th. If Ford Motor or General Motors' car owners need to purchase a charging adapter, it will only cost about $100.
During the 13-day winning streak, Tesla's stock price rose more than 41% and repeatedly hit an eight-month high. In the first half of June, the stock price rose nearly 27%, doubling since 2023 and rising nearly 110%. Wall Street is also constantly raising Tesla's target price.
Tesla is expected to have a shining moment in valuation with Amazon AWS or Apple service revenue. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, who has always been bullish on Tesla, said this week that the change that has occurred on Wall Street in the past month is:
"With Ford Motor and General Motors' recognition of Tesla's charging partnership, Tesla's sum-of-the-parts valuation (SOTP) is finally starting to take effect.
This is similar to Wall Street's recognition of the contribution of Amazon's cloud business AWS to the overall company's profit margin and valuation, as well as the contribution of Apple's service business to revenue growth and profit margin."
Sum-of-the-parts valuation means valuing different businesses/subsidiaries operated by the same company separately and then adding them up to see if there is a difference between the valuation of individual businesses and the overall valuation of the company.
AWS and Apple's service business were initially valued separately from their respective main retail and hardware businesses, and the market later realized that these businesses in turn became pillars and strengthened sales of the main business.
The analyst raised Tesla's target price from $215 to $300, a 16% increase from the closing price on the Tuesday before the report was released, and rated it as "buy/hold". Other potential services for Tesla include insurance sales and driving assistance software.
Musk also hinted at other possible collaborations with other traditional car companies besides EV charging, including "We are happy to provide assistance in software for running electric vehicles." "
Wall Street: Tesla's Supercharging Station Sharing Could Bring in $2 Billion in Annual Revenue and Increase Valuation by $100 Billion
Wall Street is particularly bullish on the prospects of Tesla and its competitors sharing the Supercharging Station network.
Currently, Tesla's Supercharging Station network has about 17,000 fast charging stations in the United States, not only the widest, largest, and most reliable network in North America, but also the only global fast charging network for electric vehicles.
Daiwa Capital Markets analyst Jairam Nathan on Wednesday raised his target price from $185 to $285, citing Tesla's technological leadership in fast charging and charging station infrastructure as a revenue opportunity, with annual charging revenue from Ford Motor and General Motors expected to reach up to $2 billion by 2030.
Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney previously said that expanding revenue channels from charging stations could bring Tesla annual sales of $1 billion to $3 billion.
Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas predicts that the valuation of Tesla's Supercharging Station network could reach as high as $100 billion, as Tesla's NACS charging interface is expected to become the North American standard, further expanding the company's leading edge.
Musk Invites Toyota, the World's Largest Automaker, to Join the Fast Charging Alliance, and Tesla's NACS Interface is Gradually Becoming the Industry Standard
Tesla claims on its website that its Supercharging Stations can add 200 miles of range in just 15 minutes, and given the wide network of charging stations, electric vehicles will rarely need to charge more than 80%.
Currently, there are two EV charging plug standards in North America, in addition to Tesla's "North American Charging Standard (NACS)," there is also the "Combined Charging System (CCS)," which uses slow charging plugs and is also used by public charging networks and other automakers. The U.S. Department of Energy says the CCS network has 54,000 charging stations, including 7,400 with fast charging services.
This week, Tesla CEO Musk also called on Toyota, the world's largest automaker, which is accelerating its electric vehicle strategy, to join Tesla's Super Fast Charging Station partnership on Twitter. Analysts say that if Toyota responds positively to this, it may encourage mainstream automakers such as Kia, Hyundai, and Stellantis to adopt the "Tesla Charging Standard" to avoid being at a competitive disadvantage.
Some analysts also point out that the charging network is one of the most important aspects of the development of electric vehicles, and that manufacturing batteries with longer range, having a huge network of charging stations, and providing fast charging services are all reasons why Tesla dominates the market.
By opening up the fast charging network to competitors, Tesla has weakened some of its advantages, but has developed an important source of revenue and consolidated its position as a leader in the electric vehicle industry, as its charging plug will become the industry standard. Currently, only Volkswagen has explicitly stated its loyalty to the CCS charging standard and is expanding its own charging station network.
Analysts are even more bullish on Tesla's autonomous driving technology and robot taxi potential
RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan also rated Tesla as a "buy" on Thursday, raising its target price from $212 to $305, a premium of over 19% from Thursday's closing price. The main reason is the potential of autonomous driving technology and robot taxis:
"We firmly believe that autonomous driving robot taxis may change society more than any other event in our lifetime and account for more than 70% of Tesla's future value. If demand for robot taxis surges, Tesla's market value may increase by another $155 billion.
Given Tesla's advanced autonomous driving technology, it should be able to dominate the robot taxi market, with a 25% share in the US, 8% in Europe, and 7% in China.
We now believe that robot taxis are the core investment thesis for Tesla, and one of the most powerful factors helping the stock continue its amazing rise. The success of early price wars and milestone deals with Ford Motor and General Motors also helped push up the stock.
Tesla's leading FSD (Full Self-Driving) software should be able to offset the dilution of profits from low-priced models and help the company position itself well in the process of transitioning to a software business."
Tesla is selling its most advanced driving assistance feature, FSD, to customers for a one-time fee of $15,000 or by monthly subscription, and is trying to make the product achieve L3 and L4 level autonomous driving functions. L3 means that the driver can safely temporarily stop paying attention to the road in limited situations, and L4 means that the driver can mostly not pay attention to the road.
The analyst mentioned above said that Tesla's ultimate goal is to push FSD technology to the point where cars can truly drive themselves, giving Tesla and other companies the opportunity to operate truly unmanned robot taxi fleets.
Tesla's 13-day rally coincides with Nvidia's stock soaring, both benefiting from AI frenzy
He also pointed out that Tesla's 13-day rally coincided with Nvidia's stock soaring after its first-quarter earnings report, with AI helping Nvidia's stock rise nearly 200% year-to-date and about 41% from May 24 to June 14. This indicates that Tesla will also benefit from the AI frenzy:
"Trading in the post-Nvidia era has fully opened up, and companies with the intention or ambition to use AI capabilities will benefit."
In fact, Tesla is using its own artificial intelligence to train its FSD system. Musk told the media on May 16 that the company has "its ChatGPT moment," which means that when FSD develops to the point where cars can truly drive themselves, people will realize the importance of Tesla's AI capabilities.
"Compared with artificial intelligence (such as ChatGPT) that can write articles when prompted, autonomous driving is a more difficult artificial intelligence problem to solve."
Aggressive Investor: Musk's Renewed Focus on Tesla is the Fundamental Reason for the Stock Price Soaring
Aggressive investor Ross Gerber, who had considered running for Tesla's board of directors in February, said on Thursday that the astonishing rebound in Tesla's stock price was mainly due to Musk's attention "returning":
"We have just seen how much change Musk's focus on Tesla can bring."
He said that since May 12, when Musk finally chose a successor to the CEO of Twitter, Tesla's stock price has risen by more than 50%, and its market value has increased by about $300 billion:
"In just 30 days since Musk really refocused on Tesla, he has led the company to sign a major agreement on charging infrastructure, and the effect of the trip to China has been very positive. The stock market has responded, institutional investors have returned, and Tesla has returned to its deserved valuation."