Veteran analyst delivers blunt 3-word take on Tesla after report

“Better than feared.”

That’s the three-word verdict from Wedbush’s Dan Ives aft Tesla(TSLA) reported its latest lackluster accumulation and transportation numbers.

With astir leaning bearish, Ives' instrumentality wasn’t the absorption investors were expecting.

Tesla’s transportation numbers came successful down interior targets, but landed adjacent capable to Wall Street’s expectations.

Deliveries are nether duress pursuing the nonaccomplishment of the captious $7,500 U.S. taxation credit, on with ongoing weakness crossed Europe. Still, the wide study pointed to stableness alternatively of deterioration.

However, having covered Tesla for years, this isn’t the aforesaid EV-centric institution it erstwhile was.

Ives is echoing the aforesaid sentiment, saying investors are judging Tesla connected much than conscionable quarterly car deliveries, but besides connected AI, energy, and autonomy.

CEO Elon Musk made that constituent wide connected Tesla’s Q4 2024 net call.

For these reasons, we could spot a new-look Tesla, with aggregate AI and autonomy catalysts masking weaknesses successful its halfway EV business.

At archetypal glance, Tesla’s Q4 and full-year 2025 accumulation and transportation study was different header miss.

Here’s wherever the numbers really stand.

• Q4 2025 deliveries:418,227 vehicles, astir 1.1% down Tesla’s company-compiled expert statement of 422,850 and astir 3.4% under Visible Alpha’s 432,810 estimate.

• Q4 2025 production:434,358 vehicles, lagging Bloomberg’s cited statement of 470,780 by astir 7.7%.

• Full-year 2025 deliveries:1,636,129 vehicles, mostly in line with Tesla’s compiled statement of 1,640,752 and adjacent to third-party expectations of astir 1.65 million.

• Full-year 2025 production:1,654,667 vehicles, which means Tesla produced somewhat much than it delivered.

• Energy retention (Q4):14.2 GWh deployed, a record quarter, beating Tesla’s compiled statement of 13.4 GWh by astir 6%.

Veteran Tesla bull Dan Ives feels the spread betwixt accumulation and transportation numbers was tiny capable to debar raising immoderate large reddish flags.

Ives besides believes that Tesla faces important challenges successful achieving transportation maturation again, peculiarly aft the nonaccomplishment of the EV taxation recognition successful Q3 and European headwinds.

However, with deliveries much oregon little matching expectations, helium feels Tesla enters 2026 successful a beardown position.

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Perhaps the brightest spot is its vigor business, wherever deployments jumped to 46.7 gigawatt-hours for the year.

More importantly, though, Ives reiterated the value of AI, Full Self-Driving, Optimus robotics, and Robotaxis successful 2026.

He keeps a buy standing connected Tesla stock, with a monolithic $600 terms target.

For perspective, that’s the highest standing connected Wall Street.

Tesla banal is presently trading near $438 after releasing its latest transportation report.

The past week has been pugnacious for the banal (down 8%), but it capped disconnected 2025 successful the green, delivering a 16% gain.

When I past covered Tesla banal (December 18, 2025), it was trading astatine $483.37, truthful it has since declined by astir 9.4%.

Related: Morgan Stanley drops astonishing connection connected tech stocks

Nevertheless, it’s inactive trading astatine what bears would telephone a nosebleed valuation, astatine 268 times non-GAAP guardant earnings.

That said, here’s wherever the large banks and large analysts are pegging the banal close now.

• Deutsche Bank: $500 terms people (+14%) — stays buy, leaning into the Robotaxi/AI narrative.

• BofA Securities: $471 terms people (+8%) — raised people but kept a neutral stance, calling Tesla the “physical AI” person portion raising concerns implicit its valuation. Source:Investing.com

• Goldman Sachs: $420 terms people (-4%) — nudged its people higher, but it’s inactive sitting beneath the tape.

• Morgan Stanley: $425 terms people (-3%) — adjacent weight, with Robotaxi framed arsenic the cardinal catalyst for the archetypal fractional of 2026. Source:Investing.com

• UBS: $247 terms people (-44%) — sell, arguing the stock’s pricing successful excessively overmuch autonomy upside excessively soon. Source:Investing.com

Tesla’s 2025 transportation communicative has been thing but smooth.

The twelvemonth 2025 began with a large stumble, arsenic Tesla’s Q1 deliveries slid to 336,681, chiefly owed to Model Y enactment changeovers, efficaciously sidelining accumulation for weeks.

Q2 brought betterment with 384,122 deliveries, but it inactive felt much similar grinding advancement than a existent comeback.

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Q3 past changed the code with deliveries surging to 497,099, turning into Tesla’s champion 4th of past year, driven chiefly by customers rushing to entree the $7,500 U.S. EV taxation recognition earlier it expired.

Additionally, the contention lone adds to the existent context.

Chinese EV elephantine BYD yet again ended past twelvemonth emphatically, selling 4.6 cardinal vehicles, which includes astir 2.26 cardinal artillery EVs, The Guardian reported, blowing past Tesla’s 1.64 cardinal haul.

Moreover, rivals including Geely, NIO, and Li Auto besides posted awesome late-year numbers, highlighting the unforgiving quality of the EV scenery for Tesla.

Related: Analyst who nailed 2020 lows drops instrumentality connected S&P 500

This communicative was primitively published by TheStreet connected Jan 4, 2026, wherever it archetypal appeared successful the Investing section. Add TheStreet arsenic a Preferred Source by clicking here.