Tesla will have to bend over backwards to keep share price up, says The Westly Group's Steve Westly

? (Anchor) 00:00.070

is joining us now steve wesley founder of the wesley group and a former tesla board member steve it's great to have you on and let's start right there i just i just used the phrase i'm going to put it to you comeback kid for tesla is it warranted well

Steve Westly (Founder) 00:12.950

we'll see look twenty twenty six is going to be a pivotal year share price today record high one point five trillion dollars but tesla is likely to see the second year of declining sales and shrinking profits so they've got to get robo taxi approval and they've got to move

Steve Westly (Founder) 00:29.830

beyond two cities and that still is going to leave them way behind way most so regulatory approval in more cities more revenue growth they're going to have to bend over backwards to keep that share price up

? (Anchor) 00:41.190

how to think about that competition between tesla and waymo i realized waymo has logged many many many more hours but musk and tesla have come out and said the way we've built these cars superior we can make more money on them as we roll out the robo taxis how to gauge it

Steve Westly (Founder) 00:57.700

well the way to gauge it is two things you look at regulatory approvals and the time between critical interventions so tesla robot taxes go about fifteen hundred miles between critical interventions that's where something 's wrong enough you have to pull over on the on the side

Steve Westly (Founder) 01:13.820

windows get about seventeen thousand miles between the critical interventions so they're way ahead technologically at the moment we're losing twenty markets by the end of twenty twenty six they did fourteen million rides or will do fourteen million rides this year i think moving

Steve Westly (Founder) 01:29.270

to about thirty five million next year so look tesla in two cities still require safety drivers they got a lot of ground to make up

Dom Chu (Anchor) 01:36.870

hey steve it's dom i wonder with the stock right now hovering just around record highs if not hitting record highs just in the last couple of weeks or so what is the catalyst that you see needed for investors to continue that story in twenty twenty six you mentioned some of the

Dom Chu (Anchor) 01:52.270

benchmarks you're looking at but what exactly is the roadway in terms of what they need to deliver quarter by quarter for investors to keep saying we're going to keep the stock we're going to keep bidding it up

Steve Westly (Founder) 02:02.270

look i think there actually a few things they have to see more growth i think it's lower cost models but they need to prove that they can grow in new areas and one of those areas is their energy division is booming major provider of power walls mega packs energy blocks for

Steve Westly (Founder) 02:17.110

utilities and there's a revolution going on in AI and data centers and it's forcing utilities to look for new power suppliers tesla right now is filling that void energy division will grow from about ten billion last year to fourteen billion this year that's forty percent they

Steve Westly (Founder) 02:32.790

can keep up that growth the energy of the division may be that spark they're looking for

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 02:39.150

yes distributed power steve hey it's brian sullivan it's like billions of minutes of electrical power rolling around on batteries that that's the way to look at it because somebody 's looking at it in a big way tesla 's market cap is larger than every american car company

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 02:53.910

combined you can even throw in a couple of french companies or whatever whatever 's left in europe by the way on on top of that but what did the market get wrong in in mid march tesla was at two twenty two a share politicians were kind of dumping on it making fun of elon musk

Brian Sullivan (Anchor) 03:09.870

that literally ticked the bottom the stock has more than doubled since then what changed in the sentiment since mid to late march

Steve Westly (Founder) 03:20.350

so that's the trillion dollar question because again you're seeing flattish growth what the heck happened here i i think what people are believing is that tesla is on the cusp of delivering full self driving and again getting full testing in texas without drivers a big step

Steve Westly (Founder) 03:39.150

forward but they need more this energy thing is going to be huge people are beginning to realize car companies aren't those car companies anymore they have to be technology companies they have to be energy companies don't take my word for it look at big firms like vistra last

Steve Westly (Founder) 03:53.910

year one of the world 's largest independent power providers had a faster growing stock than nvidia tesla has this division of energy products power walls you've seen them in garages but now these mega packs for utilities and these big energy blocks that can provide up to twenty

Steve Westly (Founder) 04:13.110

megawatts of power that's a real difference maker for the company so if they can prove this new technology offerings are real that's going to give them a boost