Tesla Could Lose Lead in Electric Cars to Big Automakers

Similarly, the race to produce the world’s first affordable electric car was arguably won six years ago when Nissan launched its Leaf. It remains the best-selling electric car model over its history, but sales have undershot initial expectations, probably because the car’s limited battery life gave consumers so-called “range anxiety.”

Could the Model 3 be the product that finally shifts the gear? Possibly. Mr. Musk enjoys an Apple-like marketing halo that will give the Model 3 an advantage over rival products from Detroit and beyond. Consumers also seem to love Tesla’s design, which rejects the modest environmentalism of the Leaf in favor of sleek futurism.

But there are crucial differences between cars and phones. People replace cars less frequently than they buy new phones, giving competitors more time to react to innovation. And car crashes matter more than phone crashes, so practicality can win out over style. Above all, phones are far cheaper to make. Apple could pitch its iPhone as a luxury product, with luxurious margins, that was nonetheless affordable. Tesla can’t make an underlying profit selling cars for upwards of $70,000. The Model 3 is evidence it knows it needs to halve the price to stay in the game.

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TSLA Stock: Analyst ‘Increasingly Concerned’ at Tesla’s Ability to Hit Profit Objectives

Despite the broader market closing at all-time highs, shares of electric car maker Tesla Motors(NASDAQ:TSLA) slipped 11 cents on Friday to close at $192.18. TSLA hit an intraday low of $190.81 following a research note from JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) analyst Ryan Brinkman writing that after meeting with General Motors’ (NYSE:GM) CFO Chuck Stevens and test driving GM’s new Chevrolet Bolt, he expressed concern about Elon Musk’s company being able to achieve its profit objectives.

Commenting on the new Bolt, the analyst said the electric vehicle (EV) represents “solid competition” for Tesla’s upcoming compact luxury sedan Model 3 and that GM is the first automaker to globally market a “modestly” priced battery electric vehicle with a range in excess of 238 miles. Additionally, and to illustrate the importance of Bolt, Brinkman points out that GM plans to extend its EV beyond sales to consumers and into ride-sharing apps, including of the autonomous variety.

Brinkman, who reiterates an ‘Overweight’ and ‘Underweight’ rating on GM ($37.66) and Tesla stock, respectively, also notes that Tesla will find it increasingly difficult to profitably compete in an increasingly competitive market for electric vehicles.

It should be noted that this is not the first time Brinkman has expressed skepticism about Tesla’s ability to hit its objectives. Back in May JPM’s analyst said he was doubtful of Tesla’s production plans for its upcoming Model 3 mass-market to build a total of 500,000 all-electric vehicles in 2018, two years ahead of schedule.

“We previously held some hope that, with improved execution, Tesla could prove relative skeptics such as ourselves wrong, by in fact ramping to 500,000 units by 2020. We think they stood an outside chance of doing this. But these new targets we think standstill less chance of being accomplished within the given more aggressive timeframe,” Brinkman wrote at the time in a note to investors.

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