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Investing.com -- Tesla shares are up around 2.5% premarket despite reporting mixed Q4 results, as CEO Elon Musk struck an exceptionally bullish tone on the company’s future, according to Piper Sandler analysts.
“Elon has never sounded so bullish,” the firm wrote, maintaining its Overweight rating on the stock.
Tesla’s revenue came in at $25.7 billion, missing consensus estimates by nearly $1.5 billion, largely due to pricing pressure.
Piper Sandler noted that the company’s blended average vehicle price fell below $40,000 for the first time in its history, dragging down automotive gross margins to 13.6%, compared to 17.1% in Q3.
However, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) set a record for cost efficiency, with COGS per vehicle at $34,471—the lowest ever.
Despite weaker margins, Tesla still generated over $2 billion in free cash flow, and its 19.1% EBITDA margin was a bright spot. Additionally, EPS of $0.73 fell short of expectations ($0.77), though the quarter included $700 million in credit revenue and a $600 million bitcoin gain.
“Tesla isn’t backing down from a commitment to launch new products (plural) across multiple factories in 1H25, and management still expects delivery growth in 2025,” said Piper Sandler.
The firm adds that, most notably, Musk explicitly confirmed plans to launch an in-house robo-taxi fleet in June (Austin) and aims to enable unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) across the U.S. in 2H25.
The firm acknowledged that Musk’s FSD predictions have often been premature, but stated that “this time it feels different,” emphasizing that solving FSD would be the first step toward commercializing “real-world” AI.
“As investors come to realize the extent of TSLA’s ambition, we think the multiple will rise,” concluded Piper Sandler.