NEW YORK, Jan 7, 2026, 14:35 EST — Regular session
Tesla shares edged higher on Wednesday as fresh price forecasts from Wall Street widened the gap between bulls betting on self-driving and bears focused on the car business. The stock was up about 0.6% at $435.40 in afternoon trade.
The calls matter because Tesla is due to report fourth-quarter results after the close on Jan. 28, a reset point for expectations on profit, pricing and the timetable for new products. Tesla said earlier this month it delivered 418,227 vehicles in the quarter and deployed a record 14.2 gigawatt-hours of energy storage. 1
They also land in the thick of CES in Las Vegas, which runs Jan. 6-9, where autonomy and “physical AI” are taking up more oxygen than new EV concepts. Nvidia said its new Alpamayo family of open AI models, simulation tools and datasets targets rare “long-tail” driving scenarios and is being tested with partners including Uber, JLR and Lucid. 2
Tesla is still working through Tuesday’s selloff tied to Nvidia’s CES push, even as it steadies on Wednesday. Elon Musk brushed off the threat on social media, writing he was “not losing any sleep” about Nvidia’s move, MarketWatch reported. 3
New Street Research analyst Pierre Ferragu lifted his Tesla price target to $600 from $520 and kept a buy rating, calling CES 2026 “The Great Validation Chamber” for Tesla’s approach, TipRanks reported. Price targets are analysts’ estimates for where a stock could trade over the next 12 months; at Wednesday’s levels, that target implies roughly 38% upside. 4
On the other end, GLJ Research raised its target to $25.28 from $19.05 but stayed at sell, saying that looking at results with “reality rather than narrative” means “the earnings math deteriorates quickly,” Investing.com reported. The firm forecast quarterly revenue of $24.1 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $0.39 per share, below what it described as consensus estimates. 5
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the launch of Alpamayo a “ChatGPT moment for physical AI,” saying the models are meant to help vehicles reason through complex situations and explain decisions, TechCrunch reported. For Tesla, whose valuation has been tied to expectations it can turn Full Self-Driving — its driver-assistance package — into a robotaxi business, new tools that speed rivals’ development can keep models moving. 6
But Tesla’s forecast debate still runs through its core auto business, where demand and pricing remain sensitive to incentives and competition. Reuters reported on Jan. 2 that Tesla lost the global EV sales crown to China’s BYD in 2025 and that its annual deliveries fell 8.6% to 1.64 million vehicles. 7
Investors now look to Tesla’s Jan. 28 earnings call for a read on margins, discounting and how fast the company thinks it can scale autonomy and energy storage. CES headlines can still push the stock into Friday, but the next hard catalyst is that results release after the close. 8
