JPMorgan’s Ryan Brinkman made one of the more provocative calls on a major company this week, reiterating an Underweight rating on Tesla and setting a price target of $145, implying roughly 60 percent downside from where the stock was trading on Thursday.
The call followed Tesla’s first-quarter delivery miss and was accompanied by a note that described a “record surge in unsold vehicles” and inventory levels estimated at 164,000 units accumulated on lots globally.
Brinkman’s argument is not simply that Tesla had a bad quarter. His more pointed observation is that expectations for Tesla’s financial performance have “collapsed” across multiple metrics through the end of the decade, while the stock has simultaneously risen 50 percent and average analyst price targets have increased 32 percent. That inverse relationship between deteriorating fundamentals and rising valuations is, in his framing, the central problem with owning the stock at current levels.
The full-year 2026 earnings estimate he is now using is $1.80 per share, down from $2.00 and well below the broader Street consensus. He cut his Q1 2026 estimate to $0.30 from $0.43. At the current stock price, those figures imply a forward price-to-earnings multiple well above 190 times, a premium that requires an extraordinary and specific future to justify. That future involves robotaxi revenue at scale, Optimus robot commercialisation and full self-driving subscription revenue, none of which are generating material income today.
On the specific inventory question, the gap between 408,000 vehicles produced and 358,000 delivered in a single quarter means Tesla is accumulating stock at a rate that historically precedes either price cuts or production adjustments. Price cuts are particularly dangerous in the current context because automotive gross margin is already under pressure, and any further reduction in selling prices would compress it further heading into an earnings call where margin is the single most important number being watched.
The broader bearish context includes the expiry of the US federal EV tax credit, macroeconomic pressure on auto financing, and European brand damage. What makes the JPMorgan position notable is that even within Tesla’s own analyst coverage community, it represents a minority view. Of the 54 analysts covering the stock, only 10 have underperform or sell ratings. The average price target sits at $405, implying meaningful upside from current levels, which means most of Wall Street is either optimistic or neutral.
The counterpoint from bulls like Wedbush’s Dan Ives is that Brinkman’s model is still fundamentally a car company model applied to a business that will eventually be valued as an AI and autonomous vehicle platform. If Cybercab generates millions of rides at commercial margins and Optimus finds industrial customers willing to pay for humanoid labour, the current $145 price target will look wrong in exactly the opposite direction.
The problem is that the timeline for when those scenarios generate enough revenue to justify the current valuation is measured in years, during which the car business continues to face the competitive, macroeconomic and regulatory headwinds that are visible today.
Tesla reports full Q1 earnings on April 22. The stock has recovered modestly from its year-to-date lows following the ceasefire-driven market rally this week. Whether the April 22 call provides confirmation that the Cybercab ramp is on schedule, or reveals another quarter of margin compression without a compensating robotaxi revenue story, will determine whether Brinkman’s $145 target or Ives’s $600 target looks more credible heading into the summer.
