Tesla lands higher targets from BofA with regulatory hurdles looking lower

Bank of America sees the results of the U.S. election as a positive for Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).

For starters, President-elect Trump’s plan to relax environmental rules is seen as providing an incentive to other automakers to slow down their EV ramps even further. That downward shift in EV production is seen helping Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) maintain its hold on the domestic EV market, especially as it is planning to release new models with more affordable entry prices.

In addition, BofA sees the potential for less aggressive scrutiny under a Trump administration on the automated driving front. Analyst John Murphy highlighted that Elon Musk has proposed a national standard for regulating self-driving vehicles, which the Trump administration has expressed an openness to. “This could ease the roll-out of the Robotaxi business that TSLA plans to start offering in 2025, and currently requires state-by-state approvals,” he wrote.

Putting a pencil to paper, Murphy and his team now value Tesla (TSLA) at 10X the EV/sales mark and roll-forward the valuation horizon to 2026. BofA boosted its price objective on Buy-rated Tesla (TSLA) to $350 from $265.

Tesla (TSLA) dipped 0.2% in premarket trading on Thursday after a 14.8% post-earnings pop on Wednesday.