Earlier today, Truist Securities provided feedback on their test drive of Tesla’s (TSLA) latest autonomous driving software. Five-star analyst William Stein found the new version impressive but noted it still doesn’t achieve full autonomy. Nevertheless, the electric vehicle maker’s shares finished 5.6% higher in today’s trading.
He pointed out some positive advancements but also highlighted significant issues, such as needing to intervene to avoid a collision and responding to a police officer’s hand signals during a funeral procession.
Despite these issues, Truist remains hopeful that Tesla will continue improving its autonomous features, although they caution that these advancements may not be ready before the October robotaxi event. Truist Securities maintains a Hold rating on Tesla but has not assigned a price target. It’s worth noting that, so far, Stein has enjoyed a 75% success rate on his stock ratings, with an average return of 30.4% per rating.
Robotaxi Will Be an Important Catalyst
There’s no doubt that Tesla’s Robotaxi ambitions to eventually have a fleet of vehicles that will drive themselves and earn revenue by acting as driverless taxis will be an important catalyst for both the company and its stock. In fact, TipRanks’ Bulls Say Bear Say tool shows that bullish analysts agree, as demonstrated in the image below.
However, the bears see significant challenges ahead, as the Robotaxis will almost certainly face performance and regulatory hurdles before it can ever become mainstream. Either way, the program will either be really good or disastrous for the share price, depending on the level of success.
Is Tesla a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Overall, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 11 Buys, 12 Holds, and seven Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 13% decline in its share price over the past 12 months, the average TSLA price target of $213.92 per share implies 7.83% downside risk.
