* Baird
Baird Reiterates TSLA with Outperform, price target: $411
- Firm remains buyers into pressure as Model 3 production ramps
- Firm lowers their estimates to reflect the minor margin impact of the recall
* Jefferies
Jefferies Raised TSLA to Hold from Underperform, price target: $250
* Barron's
Cautious on TSLA: Some investors question whether the automaker can raise enough cash to keep going—but it should eventually improve Model 3 production and get past its current problems.
* Tesla Press Release : https://www.tesla.com/blog/update-last-week%E2%80%99s-accident
Confirms that Autopilot was engaged during fatal crash on March 23rd; driver got visual and audible warnings; says severity of crash was due to a missing highway safety barrier
In the moments before the collision, which occurred at 9:27 a.m. on Friday, March 23rd, Autopilot was engaged with the adaptive cruise control follow-distance set to minimum. The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive and the driver’s hands were not detected on the wheel for six seconds prior to the collision. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.
The reason this crash was so severe is because the crash attenuator, a highway safety barrier which is designed to reduce the impact into a concrete lane divider, had been crushed in a prior accident without being replaced. We have never seen this level of damage to a Model X in any other crash.
Over a year ago, our first iteration of Autopilot was found by the U.S. government to reduce crash rates by as much as 40%. Internal data confirms that recent updates to Autopilot have improved system reliability. In the US, there is one automotive fatality every 86 million miles across all vehicles from all manufacturers. For Tesla, there is one fatality, including known pedestrian fatalities, every 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot hardware. If you are driving a Tesla equipped with Autopilot hardware, you are 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident.
Tesla Autopilot does not prevent all accidents – such a standard would be impossible – but it makes them much less likely to occur. It unequivocally makes the world safer for the vehicle occupants, pedestrians and cyclists.