Since the pop in the stock price happened after the surprisingly light slap on the wrist for Elon Musk and the company, lets not forget that there are immediate and long term challenges for Tesla.
The stock price is unsustainable - even if you want to consider some kind of software based self driving oligopoly in the future. And thats only if you think that scaling for mass production of cars is possible without a lot of setbacks.
Hopefully Tesla will use the high stock price to raise capital to shorten the time to scale production. That is the main advantage of a public listing: high prices means low dilution for current owners - the famed access to capital. Use it as long as you have it.
There is no reason for Elon to talk himself in to a corner only to annoy some shorts. The shorts know that its wrong to short on valuation only. Valuation is a nice ingredient but an actual catalyst is necessary. As long as the company has that many fans who definitely want a Model 3, there is a runway to survive for quite some time.
But build quality and service need to improve by a lot for the time after the hardcore fans got their cars.
Regular customers will not be that forgiving. They need mobility as a job to be done - without some emotional/environmental component as an added benefit. The Model 3 will need to be a rational answer to a need for the customers.
Its a nice pause to take a breather and push on.
And Tesla needs to keep pushing hard to further the advent of electric mobility. Lucky for Tesla that the incumbents are still dragging their feet and, for the most part, only offer announcements of new EVs.
The only credible competitor in the market right now is the Jaguar I-Pace. Tesla needs to use the time without competition to get their quality up to par before the legacy companies start for real. As soon as they do it will come down to quality and utility.
Disclaimer:
- not investment advice
- do your research
- I never had a position in Tesla (long or short)