Deutsche Bank Maintains Hold on Tesla Motors after Peter Rawlinson Departure

Deutsche Bank has published a research report on Tesla Motors

after the company's Chief Vehicle Engineer, Peter Rawlinson's departure. In the report, Deutsche Bank writes, "The company's core competencies have not been meaningfully affected. Peter Rawlinson is a well regarded Auto Industry Engineer who brought valuable experience from his tenure at Jaguar and Corus Automotive. But it's important to note that Tesla now has a relatively large and competent Automotive Engineering organization, having brought on executives from Daimler, VW, Honda, Laepple, Ferrari, Williams Racing, and other well regarded organizations. In other words, we believe that Rawlinson's automotive expertise will be relatively easy to replace. The implications would be somewhat different if Tesla lost key executives from their Electric Powertrain Engineering group, which we ultimately view as Tesla's core proprietary competency. This group is led by Chief Technical Officer JB Straubel." Deutsche Bank maintains its Hold rating and $24 price target on Tesla Motors, which closed Friday at $22.79.