Tesla Beat Delivery Estimates by 25,000 Vehicles. Here's Why the Stock Still Hasn't Broken Out.
Key Points
Tesla's Q3 electric vehicle deliveries topped analysts' expectations.
Shares didn't rally in response to the good news, however, because the company's EV business will soon only be a measurably smaller part of its revenue mix.
TSLA shares are easily pushed and pulled as investors await more clarity on two other new business fronts.
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By most measures, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock should be soaring, particularly given its subpar performance this year so far.
Yet, it isn't. Despite delivering 486,532 electric vehicles (EVs) in Q3 versus analysts' consensus estimate of only 461,974, shares of this EV outfit have barely budged since last Friday's report.
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What gives? A couple of things, chief among which is that the market no longer cares much about the company's EV business. Tesla is now first and foremost an AI robotics company with a robotaxi side hustle. It's just barely commercialized the latter and not yet commercialized the former at all.
Image source: Getty Images.
Tesla is in transition
Tesla is on pace to do $107 billion worth of business this year, over 70% of which will come from cars. Its solar panel and energy-storage arm will drive the rest.
That's not what's on most investors' minds these days about this $1.5 trillion outfit and its outrageously expensive stock, though. Rather, TSLA shares are priced at more than 170 times next year's projected profit of $2.15 per share, largely in anticipation of what's (hopefully) coming after that on the robotaxi and robotics fronts.
While CEO Elon Musk's suggestion that Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot would begin bulk commercial production by the end of next year might be aggressively optimistic, there's no denying a sizable opportunity awaits at some point in the foreseeable future. Barclays believes the humanoid work robot business alone will be worth $200 billion per year by 2035.
As for robotaxis, although Tesla reported early last month that its fleet of self-driving taxis has now autonomously driven more than 1 million cumulative miles, this still only scratches the surface of what awaits. An outlook from Precedence Research suggests the worldwide robotaxi service market will also grow to nearly $190 billion by 2035, up from less than $10 billion per year now.
Connect the dots: Right or wrong, the market's mostly waiting on more certainty with these two budding businesses before committing to a position in TSLA. This is allowing the stock to ebb and flow rather than respond to tangible headlines in the meantime.
The fact that Tesla grew its deliveries by only a little over 6,000 electric vehicles from Q2's count of 480,126 may also have been slightly disappointing. Much of the company's growth in the meantime just depends on how many more cars it can manufacture between now and then.
The future is fully priced in (as well as it can be anyway)
This leaves interested investors in something of a quandary, albeit not a new one. This company and its stock have always been something of an enigma, leaving the latter somewhere between a volatile buy-and-hold investment and a speculative bet on the next big headline. Now add a potential merger with Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX) to the list of things the future may or may not hold.
Still, given the company's $1.4 trillion valuation and the relative future size of what will certainly be highly competitive robotics and robotaxi businesses, the lack of response to Q3's EV deliveries makes sense. Investors are essentially saying the stock already fully reflects all future risk and reward that can reasonably be discerned.
Just something to keep in mind if you're watching.
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James Brumley has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends Barclays Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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