Morningstar

A Lot of Work Ahead for Tesla

Tesla is masterful at unveiling exciting products with top specifications, but the company has yet to actually make them perfectly in large volume.

Securities In This Article
Tesla Inc
(TSLA)

After incorporating the semi truck and surprise second-generation roadster that

We found both the truck and the roadster very impressive and better than any equivalent electric vehicle available today. The truck starts production in 2019 and the roadster in 2020. CEO Elon Musk says the truck will have 500 miles of range at highway speeds with all-in weight of 80,000 pounds, though it’s not clear how much of that weight is payload versus the truck itself. The Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck has range up to 124 miles and is due in 2020, and Daimler Trucks’ Mitsubishi Fuso group announced a 217-mile model in October called the Vision One that could be feasible by 2021. Tesla guarantees its semi will not break down for 1 million miles and claims a payback period versus a diesel of two years based on $2.50/gallon for diesel and $0.25 per mile saved versus a diesel truck. We think the Tesla semi will cost nearly $200,000.

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About the Author

David Whiston, CFA, CPA, CFE

Strategist
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David Whiston, CFA, CPA, CFE, is a strategist, AM Industrials, for Morningstar*. He covers stocks in the automotive industry, including dealerships, parts manufacturers, and automakers. He has covered the automotive industry since joining Morningstar in 2007. He writes stock reports, ad hoc reports, stock analyst notes, and builds discounted cash flow models for each company covered. He also assesses their economic moat and makes frequent television and print media appearances in local, national, and international news outlets. Key stocks covered include GM, Ford, CarMax, and all six publicly traded franchise auto dealers, such as AutoNation and Penske Automotive Group.

Before joining Morningstar in 2007, Whiston spent four years in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ New York real estate audit practice and one year in its Chicago office working on real estate acquisition due diligence, gaining experience around assessing an asset’s cash flow.

Whiston holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration with concentrations in finance, economics, and organizational behavior from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation, and he is a Certified Public Accountant and a Certified Fraud Examiner.

In 2012, he ranked first in the specialty retailers and services industry in The Wall Street Journal’s annual “Best on the Street” analysts survey. He ranked first in the same industry in 2011 .

* Morningstar Research Services LLC (“Morningstar”) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc

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