Investor's Corner
Top 5 things Tesla (TSLA) investors want to know from the Q3 2019 earnings call
Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) retail and institutional investors are aggregating a number of inquiries that will potentially be addressed by the electric car maker’s executives in the upcoming Q3 2019 earnings call, which will be held later today, October 23, 2019. The questions are aggregated from verified TSLA shareholders by Say, a startup that aims to create and develop investor communication tools.
Using the platform, Tesla’s retail and institutional investors have been submitting and voting on inquiries they wish to be discussed and clarified by the electric car maker. Here are the Top 5 questions that garnered a notable number of votes from the company’s retail and institutional shareholders.
Retail Shareholders
- Can you provide more detail on the DeepScale acquisition, its importance, and whether Tesla is still on track to recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs with automatic driving on city streets at the end of 2019?
- There is skepticism regarding your comment that Full Self Driving will be ‘feature complete’ by year end, likely resulting from confusion about what ‘feature complete’ means. Could you please talk to this, perhaps give us a list of the features that establish the FSD baseline?
- News reports suggest that GF3 may already be producing Model 3s for the Chinese market. Could you update us on the production expectations for GF3 and confirm the purpose of the second building now being built? Is it for battery production as suggested by some press outlets?
- What is your current timetable for initial Model Y deliveries?
- Can you update us on the initial results of Tesla Car Insurance? Is there a timeline to expand it nationally/internationally?
Institutional Shareholders
- Could you update us on the progress being made towards FSD, the trajectory of revenue recognition associated with this and the level of performance at which you see full revenue recognition for FSD? Additionally, how do you see pricing developing for this product?
- With respect to Model Y, what is your latest expectation for launch timing, do you anticipate any Model 3 production downtime at Fremont during the launch, and how should Model Y gross margin % look vs Model 3 gross margin%?
- Can you provide an update on FSD package attach rates. As FSD attach rates improve, will you let the financial benefits manifest in higher gross margins for the company/shareholders; or will you lower vehicle pricing to drive deliveries volume?
- Can you provide an update on when you think the company can achieve sustainable profitability while absorbing the costs of new product lines and factory ramps? Can the company become fully self-funding any time soon?
- What are the opportunities for Tesla to create demand? Is word of mouth still sufficient or should we expect to see Tesla commence advertising in the near future?
Tesla is yet to fully confirm if it will be entertaining questions from Say in the upcoming earnings call, though the company has addressed inquiries from retail shareholders in the past quarters. In the second-quarter earnings call, retail investors representing around $34 million worth of TSLA shares were able to have multiple inquiries addressed before company executives took questions from Wall Street analysts.
Tesla is quite unique in the way that it is willing to democratize its process of communicating its earnings to shareholders and its institutional investors. Such a strategy is yet another step away from convention, considering that traditional earnings calls usually feature exclusive questions from Wall Street analysts and the occasional member of the media.
Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call is expected to be held on Wednesday, October 23, 2019 at 3:30 p.m. Pacific Time (6:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
The full list of questions from TSLA’s retail and institutional investors listed on Say could be accessed here.
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Tesla bear Michael Burry got blunt with his beliefs over the company’s valuation, which he called “ridiculously overvalued” in a newsletter to subscribers this past weekend.
“Tesla’s market capitalization is ridiculously overvalued today and has been for a good long time,” Burry, who was the inspiration for the movie The Big Short, and was portrayed by Christian Bale.
Burry went on to say, “As an aside, the Elon cult was all-in on electric cars until competition showed up, then all-in on autonomous driving until competition showed up, and now is all-in on robots — until competition shows up.”
Tesla bear Michael Burry ditches bet against $TSLA, says ‘media inflated’ the situation
For a long time, Burry has been skeptical of Tesla, its stock, and its CEO, Elon Musk, even placing a $530 million bet against shares several years ago. Eventually, Burry’s short position extended to other supporters of the company, including ARK Invest.
-->Tesla has long drawn skepticism from investors and more traditional analysts, who believe its valuation is overblown. However, the company is not traded as a traditional stock, something that other Wall Street firms have recognized.
While many believe the company has some serious pull as an automaker, an identity that helped it reach the valuation it has, Tesla has more than transformed into a robotics, AI, and self-driving play, pulling itself into the realm of some of the most recognizable stocks in tech.
Burry’s Scion Asset Management has put its money where its mouth is against Tesla stock on several occasions, but the firm has not yielded positive results, as shares have increased in value since 2020 by over 115 percent. The firm closed in May.
In 2020, it launched its short position, but by October 2021, it had ditched that position.
Tesla has had a tumultuous year on Wall Street, dipping significantly to around the $220 mark at one point. However, it rebounded significantly in September, climbing back up to the $400 region, as it currently trades at around $430.
-->It closed at $430.14 on Monday.
Investor's Corner
Mizuho keeps Tesla (TSLA) “Outperform” rating but lowers price target
As per the Mizuho analyst, upcoming changes to EV incentives in the U.S. and China could affect Tesla’s unit growth more than previously expected.
Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh lowered Tesla’s (NASDAQ:TSLA) price target to $475 from $485, citing potential 2026 EV subsidy cuts in the U.S. and China that could pressure deliveries. The firm maintained its Outperform rating for the electric vehicle maker, however.
As per the Mizuho analyst, upcoming changes to EV incentives in the U.S. and China could affect Tesla’s unit growth more than previously expected. The U.S. accounted for roughly 37% of Tesla’s third-quarter 2025 sales, while China represented about 34%, making both markets highly sensitive to policy shifts. Potential 50% cuts to Chinese subsidies and reduced U.S. incentives affected the firm’s outlook.
With those pressures factored in, the firm now expects Tesla to deliver 1.75 million vehicles in 2026 and 2 million in 2027, slightly below consensus estimates of 1.82 million and 2.15 million, respectively. The analyst was cautiously optimistic, as near-term pressure from subsidies is there, but the company’s long-term tech roadmap remains very compelling.
Despite the revised target, Mizuho remained optimistic on Tesla’s long-term technology roadmap. The firm highlighted three major growth drivers into 2027: the broader adoption of Full Self-Driving V14, the expansion of Tesla’s Robotaxi service, and the commercialization of Optimus, the company’s humanoid robot.
“We are lowering TSLA Ests/PT to $475 with Potential BEV headwinds in 2026E. We believe into 2026E, US (~37% of TSLA 3Q25 sales) EV subsidy cuts and China (34% of TSLA 3Q25 sales) potential 50% EV subsidy cuts could be a headwind to EV deliveries.
-->“We are now estimating TSLA deliveries for 2026/27E at 1.75M/2.00M (slightly below cons. 1.82M/2.15M). We see some LT drivers with FSD v14 adoption for autonomous, robotaxi launches, and humanoid robots into 2027 driving strength,” the analyst noted.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) has landed an elusive “must own” status from Wall Street firm Melius, according to a new note released early this week.
Analyst Rob Wertheimer said Tesla will lead the charge in world-changing tech, given the company’s focus on self-driving, autonomy, and Robotaxi. In a note to investors, Wertheimer said “the world is about to change, dramatically,” because of the advent of self-driving cars.
He looks at the industry and sees many potential players, but the firm says there will only be one true winner:
“Our point is not that Tesla is at risk, it’s that everybody else is.”
The major argument is that autonomy is nearing a tipping point where years of chipping away at the software and data needed to develop a sound, safe, and effective form of autonomous driving technology turn into an avalanche of progress.
Wertheimer believes autonomy is a $7 trillion sector,” and in the coming years, investors will see “hundreds of billions in value shift to Tesla.”
A lot of the major growth has to do with the all-too-common “butts in seats” strategy, as Wertheimer believes that only a fraction of people in the United States have ridden in a self-driving car. In Tesla’s regard, only “tens of thousands” have tried Tesla’s latest Full Self-Driving (Supervised) version, which is v14.
Tesla Full Self-Driving v14.2 – Full Review, the Good and the Bad
When it reaches a widespread rollout and more people are able to experience Tesla Full Self-Driving v14, he believes “it will shock most people.”
Citing things like Tesla’s massive data pool from its vehicles, as well as its shift to end-to-end neural nets in 2021 and 2022, as well as the upcoming AI5 chip, which will be put into a handful of vehicles next year, but will reach a wider rollout in 2027, Melius believes many investors are not aware of the pace of advancement in self-driving.
Tesla’s lead in its self-driving efforts is expanding, Wertheimer says. The company is making strategic choices on everything from hardware to software, manufacturing, and overall vehicle design. He says Tesla has left legacy automakers struggling to keep pace as they still rely on outdated architectures and fragmented supplier systems.
Tesla shares are up over 6 percent at 10:40 a.m. on the East Coast, trading at around $416.
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