Robotaxi Competition Stiffens, Tesla Stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) Notches Up

Electric vehicle giant Tesla TSLA -0.43% ▼ has been fighting to keep its robotaxi service viable in the face of growing competition. Alphabet’s GOOGL -0.77% ▼ Waymo is one of the biggest. Now, Tesla is also facing down Lucid LCID -0.30% ▼ , with its new Lunar taxi. Investors did not seem too concerned, though, based on the fractional uptick in Tesla stock seen in Friday afternoon’s trading.

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The Lunar is a two-seat robotaxi built around Lucid’s standard midsize electric vehicle platform. This same platform gave rise to the Cosmos and Earth model SUVs, with a third one to be named later. These three will prove immediate rivals to Tesla’s Model Y. Two separate models, the Lunar and the Gravity, will go after the robotaxi market.

Lucid plans to roll out 20,000 Gravity robotaxis by the end of this year. Further, Lunar is moving to bring out L4 autonomy, which is a pretty far cry from Tesla’s L2. The Lunar robotaxi will follow later, and that one will pose a particular challenge to Tesla’s Robotaxi, reports note.

When a Registration Decline Proves to be Good News

It would be easy to think that the plummeting numbers of electric vehicle registrations would be bad news for Tesla. But this is not the case, reports note, as there are signs that the overall decline is actually good news, somewhat, for Tesla.

Tesla’s numbers of registrations dropped, certainly. But they actually dropped at a slower rate than the entire electric vehicle market, reports noted. Moreover, the Model Y dropped at a slower rate still, allowing it to keep its rank as the leader in the United States electric vehicle market. The Model Y’s performance is still top-notch, even as Tesla gets rid of the Model S and Model X. So even if things seem a little rocky for Tesla right now, as S&P Global Mobility analyst Tom Libby noted, “Tesla is not going away.”

Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 13 Buys, 11 Holds, and seven Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 58.02% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $399.25 per share implies 1% upside potential.

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