Yahoo Finanzas Tesla's 'most important catalyst is the Cybertruck': Fund manager Gary Black
Tesla (TSLA) stock is jumping for a second day as investors and analysts continue to break down what was revealed during Tesla’s Q4 earnings report.
While Tesla beat on both the top and bottom lines, CEO Elon Musk's comments during the conference call really piqued investors' interest.
One of the juiciest nuggets: Following price cuts in January of this year, Musk said the company had seen the “strongest orders year to date ever in our history.”
Gary Black, noted Tesla investor and Future Fund managing partner, told Yahoo Finance, “Elon got on [the earnings call] and showed a lot of confidence and said the January orders were about twice what production is,” he said. “He even kind of hinted maybe we could even do 2 million units in 2023, and that's what's pushing the stock up.”
Though Black is a believer in Tesla, he is not one to mince words, and has been critical of the company —mostly in regard to Musk’s foray into Twitter.
Black even said that Tesla’s Q4 earnings report was rather “unspectacular,” another nugget in the earnings release really caught his attention — Tesla’s update on the upcoming Cybertruck. Tesla revealed the Cybertruck is slated to begin production later this summer, though Musk clarified on the call that volume production would only really happen in 2024.
“The most important catalyst is Cybertruck,” Black said. “We've been waiting for four years, there's 1.3 million preorders. That is a huge catalyst if they can get that out by the end of the year and then early next year.”
Indeed the Cybertruck pickup might be the most anticipated Tesla product of all time, following its reveal back in 2019. Since then, however, the Ford F-150 Lightning EV pickup has been released, along with Rivian’s R1T. Later this year, GM will release its Chevrolet Silverado EV, and in 2024, Ram’s 1500 EV pickup will join the competition.
While the EV pickup battlefield will be fierce, none of the competitors has anything that resembles the Cybertruck in terms of looks. Nor can they match Tesla’s EV production prowess at this time.
Black in fact is putting his money where is mouth is, with his own Cybertruck on pre-order.
“I can't wait to drive it up to Nobu in Chicago and leave it there and have all the kids take pictures of it,” he says. “It's so radical looking that you either love it or you hate it, and I think it's beautiful. I think it's going to be a huge seller.”
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Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter and on Instagram.
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