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TSLA
By: GEORGE ZACK
Published: Mar 2, 2015 at 11:17 am EST
Once again, Bank of America (BofA) Merrill Lynch has shown skepticism toward Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA), sending the stock price down more than 2% in early trading on Monday. BofA analyst John Lovallo maintained an Underperform rating on the stock with the target price of $65, the least among Wall Street analysts.
By looking at the 10K, the sell-side firm said Tesla is operating a “Risky Business,” pointing out two factors that are cause of great concern.
The first being Tesla's Resale Value Guarantee (RVG) program, which allows Tesla Model S owners to resell their vehicle back to the automaker after three years of usage at 47% purchase price. BofA said this strategy accumulates high demand for Tesla vehicles, but the Palo Alto-based car maker is underestimating its loss since electric vehicles (EVs) have a low resale value, and even a recent Wall Street Journal article supports this claim.
Therefore, it is difficult to gauge how much Tesla EVs will be worth after three years, and second-hand EV market has not yet been developed. Tesla sold 10,400 Model S under its RVG program, which accounts for 18% Model S deliveries since the first batch rolled out.
Second, BofA talked about Tesla's finished goods inventory for the fourth quarter, which is worth around $397 million, and raises serious questions on the automaker's order-only delivery. It was unusual for Tesla Motors to fail its delivery targets in 4Q. At its 4Q earnings call last month, Tesla announced it missed deliveries because of shipment problems, bad weather conditions, and customers gone on holidays.
Based on its estimates, the sell-side firm believes around 1,750 vehicles were not delivered last quarter. The firm questioned why Tesla has made vehicles “available for immediate sale at retail and service center locations” ( stated in Tesla’s 10K), when the company boasts of having more orders than production rates.
Tesla stock is currently down 2.85%, as of 10:45 am EST, trading at $197.6. |
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