EV watch: Tesla deliveries, robotaxi musings, and soaring deliveries in China

Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) traded lower on Tuesday amid broad weakness in the stock market. The electric vehicle maker is expected to report Q3 deliveries before the market opens on Wednesday.

The consensus estimate is for Tesla (TSLA) to report deliveries of 462,250 vehicles. Deutsche Bank thinks the breakdown will be about 139,000 Model 3 sedans, 296,400 Model Y SUVs, a combined 13,350 of the larger Model S sedans and Model X SUVs, and about 13,500 Cybertruck pickups. Last year, Tesla (TSLA) delivered 435K vehicles in Q3.

Earlier on Tuesday, Chinese EV deliveries reports came in strong for NIO (NIO) +35% year-over-year, XPeng (XPEV) +39%, BYD Company (OTCPK:BYDDF) +9%, Li Auto (LI) +49%, and ZEEKR Automotive (ZK) +77%. Those sizzling growth indicates Tesla (TSLA) has plenty of rising competition in the region.

Looking ahead, Wedbush Securities thinks the Tesla (TSLA) deliveries report is just an appetizer for the main even next week, when Tesla holds its long-awaited Robotaxi Day event.

“We believe Robotaxi Day will be seminal and historical day for Musk and Tesla and marks a new chapter of growth around autonomous, FSD, and AI future at Tesla. We continue to believe Tesla is the most undervalued AI name in the market, and we expect Musk & Co. to unveil some game changing autonomous technology at this event next week,” previewed analyst Dan Ives. Wedbush has an Outperform rating on TSLA and a price target of $300.

Morgan Stanley also sees the potential for a narrative reset. “As Tesla’s CEO makes further progress on building out its inference swarm (cars, robots) and AI/compute infrastructure (including xAI), we believe investors will see a clearer picture of the overlapping ‘surface area’ between Tesla and other parts of the Muskonomy, particularly the evolving relationship between xAI and Tesla,” highlighted analyst Adam Jonas. The firm has an Overweight rating on TSLA and a price target of $310.

EV stock watch: ZEEKR (ZK) +6.7%, Li Auto (LI) +5.5%, XPeng (XPEV) +3.3%, Polestar Aumotive (PSNY) +2.2%, NIO (NIO) +2.2%, VinFast Auto (VFS) -0.6%, Tesla (TSLA) -3.5%, Lucid Group (LCID) -4.7%, Rivian Automoive (RIVN) -5.4%, and Canoo (GOEV) -6.1%.