RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan maintained an Outperform rating on Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) with a price target of $298.
The fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 saw a demand-pull forward from the IRA expiry of particular Model 3s, and that likely negatively impacted the first quarter of 2024, as per the analyst.
The analyst flagged the Red Sea disruption in January and the arson attack in February, hampering the Berlin gigafactory operations.
Narayan expects the company’s decision to give one month of free trials of FSD in the U.S. will help drive higher volumes in the second quarter.
Higher FSD attach rates are also central to his investment thesis on the stock.
Narayan projects Tesla deliveries of 446,000 in the first quarter of 2024, down 10.7% vs. his prior estimate of 500k and 3.3% below consensus, based on registration data and app downloads. He expects Tesla to report deliveries during the first week of April.
Narayan projects first-quarter revenue and adj EPS of $25.71 billion and $0.80.