Analyst Dan Ives sees a ‘major inflection’ of electric vehicle demand, and Tesla as the clear EV market leader with a market cap approaching $500 billion
Shares of Tesla Inc. rallied into record territory Monday, after Wedbush analyst Dan Ives boosted his base-case price target, and said he envisions a scenario in which the electric vehicle market leader’s stock reaches $1,000.
The stock TSLA, +6.58% soared 7.1% to $524.52 in afternoon trading, putting on track to close well above the Nov. 19 record close of $499.27. The $34.91 share price gain was adding $33.1 billion to Tesla’s market-capitalization, which climbed to $497.2 billion.
Ives raised his base-case stock price target to $560 from $500, while reiterating the neutral rating he’s had on Tesla since April 2019.
But Ives raised his bull-case price target by 25%, to $1,000 from $800.
“With the sustained path to profitability and S&P 500 index inclusion achieved, the Tesla bull story is now all about a stepped up EV demand trajectory into 2021,” Ives wrote in a note to clients.
And he said he is now seeing “a major inflection of EV demand globally, with expectations that EV vehicles ramp from the current 3% of total auto sales to 10% by 2025.
“We believe this demand dynamic will disproportionately benefit the clear EV category leader Tesla over the next few years especially in the key China region which we believe could represent ~40% of its EV deliveries by 2022, given the current brisk pace of sales with 150K+ deliveries in its first year out of the gates with Giga 3,” Ives wrote.
He said that while the lower-priced Model 3 remains Tesla’s core driver, the new designs around the Cybertruck and Model Y crossover SUV should help the company achieve its million-delivery target by 2023, with 2022 not out of the question.
The stock has gained 35.2% so far this month, and has soared 526.9% year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX, +0.56% has gained 11.0% this year.