Tesla Revenue Opportunity Could Be Bigger Than Initially Thought; Jefferies Boosts Estimates

In separate reports published Thursday, Jefferies analyst Dan Dolev maintained a Buy ratings on Tesla Motors Inc TSLA, while raising the price target from $350 to $360, following an analysis of the results from a proprietary survey of around 145 Tesla owners. Jefferies' proprietary survey suggested that Tesla owners were willing pay around 60 percent more for a Tesla. This indicates that introducing Model III by 2017, with an expected ASP of +/-$50K, would help the company "tap into the $35K+ price point." "Our detailed analysis of actual US/North America sales and pricing by make and model across 200+ different models implies an aggregate global TAM of ~19m vehicles for Models S, X and III combined, or roughly 75% above our initial estimate," analyst Dan Dolev wrote. The survey also underlined brand loyalty, with 25 percent of the respondents were not considering any other brand apart from Tesla, while 85 percent indicated that their next car would be a Tesla. Among the respondent, 83 percent said that they would recommend a Tesla to their friends, while 89 percent indicated that they would choose to buy a Tesla even if the federal tax credit were eliminated. The 2020 production estimate has been raised from 500K to 515K, to reflect the greater-than-expected TAM. The EPS estimates for 2016 and 2017 have been raised from $4.37 to $4.52 anf from $6.67 to $6.91, respectively.