Key Takeaways
- Tesla shares rose 4% today, adding to Monday’s gain on a Barclays upgrade, after ARK Invest restated its $4,400 price target for 2031.
- Barclays’ $450 target rests on a SpaceX merger, while ARK puts about 80% of Tesla’s 2031 value on robotaxis.
- Tesla trades far above its five-year average forward P/E, but consensus estimates through 2028 show little profit from robotaxis yet.
- Tesla’s factory can now build Cybercabs faster than it can put them into service. Next up are the Dallas launch in November and the first real robotaxi revenue in 2027.
Tesla (TSLA) is up 4% today, adding to Monday’s rally on a Barclays upgrade. After Monday’s close, ARK Invest’s Tasha Keeney restated the firm’s $4,400 base-case target for 2031.
Overnight, Elon Musk posted on X: “A Storm of Cybercabs.”
That’s two bulls in two days, making very different bets.
Two targets, two stories
Barclays analyst Dan Levy upgraded Tesla to Overweight and raised his target to $450 from $370. “We believe the anticipated merger is now a key part of the Tesla bull case,” the analysts wrote, meaning a deal with SpaceX (SPCX). Tesla and SpaceX have each formed special committees, and no terms have been set.
ARK’s case rests on robotaxis. Its model, updated Oct. 19, ties about 80% of Tesla’s 2031 enterprise value to them: about 8.1 million robotaxis bringing in $753 billion of net ride-hail revenue that year.
The rest of Wall Street sits much closer to Barclays. The consensus target has climbed to $411 from $386 a year ago, and the highest is $600.
ARK’s $4,400 is more than 7x even that high.
The stock is already pricing robotaxis
Tesla traded at 183x forward earnings at Monday’s close, against a five-year average of 108x, and today’s gain pushes it closer to 190x:
Yet consensus estimates show little of a robotaxi business. Normalized EPS is expected to climb from $1.66 in 2025 to $3.20 in 2028, still below the $4.07 Tesla earned in 2022.
Closing that gap takes robotaxi profits, and a merger premium won’t supply them.
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Building them is the easy part
Musk’s post lands as Tesla says its Texas Cybercab factory can now build robotaxis faster than it can put them into service, so the line doesn’t need to run every day.
Deployment is the hold-up. Management cited six Robotaxi cities on Tesla’s third-quarter call. Back in January, Musk had expected driverless rides in “dozens of major cities” by the end of 2026. Even ARK calls the robotaxi ramp slower than expected. And analysts expect free cash flow to stay negative through 2028.
My take: this is a robotaxi move, and at nearly 190x forward earnings, the stock already prices in a lot of what ARK expects. I’d want to see the fleet in many more cities before paying up.
The next markers are the Cybercab launch in Dallas, which management set for November, and robotaxi revenue, which Musk expects to become noticeable by the second quarter of 2027.
So what is Tesla stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
