Charged: Tesla upgraded with ‘world changed’ after Trump election

Institutional investors and professional traders rely on The Fly to keep up-to-the-second on breaking news in the electric vehicle and clean energy space, as well as which stocks in these sectors that the best analysts on Wall Street are saying to buy and sell.

From the hotly-debated high-flier Tesla (TSLA), Wall Street’s newest darling Rivian (RIVN), traditional-stalwarts turned EV-upstarts GM (GM) and Ford (F) to the numerous SPAC-deal makers that have come public in this red-hot space, The Fly has you covered with “Charged,” a weekly recap of the top stories and expert calls in the sector.

BUY TESLA: On Monday, Roth MKM upgraded Tesla to Buy from Neutral with a price target of $380, up from $85, arguing that Musk’s “authentic support for Trump likely doubled Tesla’s pool of enthusiasts and lifted credibility for a demand inflection.” The firm, which says “the world has changed,” says Tesla’s main AI mission is a smarter copilot that “aims to solve orders of magnitude more chaos than other products” and contends that CyberTaxi now faces an accommodative regulatory environment, adding that one can now “daydream about a beautiful red wave of EVs sweeping across the US, with a shiny gold ‘T’ on every car.”

In addition, Stifel raised the firm’s price target on Tesla to $411 from $287 and keeps a Buy rating on the shares. The firm believes buying Tesla shares “requires vision and patience, and the willingness to accept volatility,” but argues that the company is “clearly not just an automaker,” as evidenced by its current market cap surpassing the aggregate value of the top 10 global automakers. The firm has confidence in Tesla’s auto business, but tells investors that the significant value creation potential from its AI-based full self-driving capabilities and Cybercab robotaxi underpin its positive outlook, citing a revised sum-of-the-parts analysis for its increased target.

JPMORGAN DROPS SUIT: JPMorgan Chase (JPM) agreed to drop a lawsuit it filed against Tesla three years ago seeking $162M tied to stock warrant transactions, Bloomberg’s Bob Van Voris reports. The move to end the litigation was announced Friday in a one-page court filing by both sides, in which they dropped their claims against each other without the ability to refile them. They didn’t disclose any settlement agreement.

Click here to check out Tesla’s recent Media Buzz Sentiment as measured by TipRanks.

TARIFFS: After President-elect Donald Trump revealed intentions to impose a 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico and Canada on his first day in office in January next year, Morgan Stanley estimated this would lead to risks of significant cost hikes on more than 2.7M vehicles imported to the U.S. market from Mexico and approximately 1M imported from Canada. The firm highlights an outsized impact on General Motors, with 26% and 3% of U.S. sales imported from Mexico and Canada, respectively, and Ford, with 17% of U.S. sales imported from Mexico, as well as a number of Japanese, Korean and European peers. The firm believes the ability of exposed automakers to pass on incremental cost hikes will be challenging given a U.S. consumer already facing average monthly auto payments near historic highs and believes OEMs would face the risk of either subsidizing the tariffs through lower margins or volume decline if the threatened tariffs are enacted.

DELIVERIES: Nio (NIO) delivers 20,575 vehicles in November 2024, up 28.9% year-over-year 06:44 NIO Nio announced its November 2024 delivery results. The company delivered 20,575 vehicles in November 2024, representing an increase of 28.9% year-over-year. The deliveries consisted of 15,493 vehicles from the company’s premium smart electric vehicle brand Nio, and 5,082 vehicles from the company’s family-oriented smart electric vehicle brand ONVO. Cumulative deliveries reached 640,426 as of November 30, 2024.

XPeng (XPEV) also announced “record-breaking” vehicle delivery results for November 2024. The company delivered 30,895 Smart EVs in November 2024, representing growth of 54% year-over-year and 29% over the prior month. Deliveries of XPeng MONA M03 exceeded 10,000 units for the third consecutive month since its launch.

Meanwhile, Li Auto (LI) announced that it delivered 48,740 vehicles in November 2024, up 18.8% year-over-year. As of November 30, 2024, Li Auto had delivered a total of 441,995 vehicles in 2024, with cumulative deliveries reaching 1,075,359.

BUY NEXTERA ENERGY PARTNERS: Morgan Stanley double upgraded NextEra Energy Partners (NEP) to Overweight from Underweight with a $22 price target. While the recent U.S. election has raised uncertainty around federal clean energy policy, which is likely to serve as an overhang until Inflation Reduction Act revisions are clearer, Morgan Stanley sees limited impacts for the renewable infrastructure space. The firm continues to believe the risk of wholesale repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act is very low, supported by the significant amount of clean energy investment being made in states with greater elected Republican representation and a bipartisan preference for policies that incentivize domestic manufacturing. Morgan Stanley sees an attractive entry point for NextEra Energy Partners in the recent selloff to position ahead of a potential near-term catalyst: resolution of its strategic review, perhaps as soon as December.

ANTIDUMPING TARIFF RATE: On November 29, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its preliminary affirmative determinations in the antidumping duty investigations of Crystalline Photovoltaic Cells Whether or Not Assembled into Modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Commerce is conducting concurrent countervailing duty investigation of Crystalline Photovoltaic Cells Whether or Not Assembled into Modules from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The department set a preliminary estimated weighted-average dumping margin rate of 125.37% on Hounen Solar, Solar Long PV Tech Cambodia, and others. The petitioner is The American Alliance for Solar Manufacturing Trade Committee, the members of which are First Solar (FSLR), Hanwha Q CELLS USA, Inc., and Mission Solar Energy LLC.