Tesla's bear camp shrinks to eight of 61 analysts, the fewest since April 2023

Thirteen point one percent of 61 analysts is eight people ^[1]. At that pool size, each sell call moves the bearish share by about 1.6 percentage points ^[2]. April 2023 was the last time bears were this scarce, at 12.8% ^[5]. Today's reading is 0.3 points above that ^[3], or about a fifth of one analyst ^[4]. Colin Langan's departure from Wells Fargo took one sell out of the count without anyone upgrading ^[8].

The data fit more than one story. Cryptopolitan's report places the drop in sell calls alongside Musk's push to make Tesla a physical-AI company built on robotaxis and humanoid robots ^[7]. In that version, analysts are pricing the robots and looking past the cars. A second version is fatigue. Bears were almost a quarter of coverage at December's record ^[6] and are about one in eight now ^[8], after the stock fell almost 30% from that high ^[3]. A third is that the car business is mending in Europe, and that would be a reason to soften that has nothing to do with robots.

Europe complicates the report's own headline, that the car business keeps shrinking ^[1]. Tesla registrations across the EU, Britain and EFTA rose 43.3% from January to August, according to European Automobile Manufacturers' Association data, 4.5 points ahead of the battery-electric market ^[11][5]. In September, registrations rose 128.3% in Portugal and 61.9% in France, while Norway managed 2.2% and Denmark 2.9% ^[12][13]. Some of that comes from a soft base after two years of falling regional sales, helped by higher fuel prices and incentives ^[14][15]. Yet the same report says Tesla is heading for another annual sales decline ^[1]. If both are true, the decline has to come from outside Europe, and it has to be big enough to outweigh a 43% gain there.

I think the fatigue version fits the evidence best. The hold share is at its highest in over two years ^[9], so the calls leaving sell are stopping at neutral. The report does not include the share of buy ratings or any price targets, and without them nothing in this data shows an analyst putting a value on robotaxi revenue. Tesla also still draws more bears than any of its Magnificent Seven peers. Its 13.1% compares with Apple's 10.7%, and fewer than 2% of analysts are bearish on five of the others ^[4][10]. That puts Tesla 2.4 points above the next-most-doubted name in the group ^[7].

The shares are down 21% in a year when the S&P 500 is up 12% ^[2], a gap of 33 points ^[6]. After a fall like that, a sell call has less downside left to argue for, and the bears who stay have to defend a lower target. The view is wrong if buy ratings start rising alongside holds, or if the next cut in the bearish share comes from an upgrade that cites the robots.