Senate Republicans propose $1,000 tax on EV sales
Institutional investors and professional traders rely on The Fly to keep up-to-the-second on breaking news in the electric vehicle and clean energy space, as well as which stocks in these sectors that the best analysts on Wall Street are saying to buy and sell.
From the hotly-debated high-flier Tesla (TSLA), Wall Street’s newest darling Rivian (RIVN), traditional-stalwarts turned EV-upstarts GM (GM) and Ford (F) to the numerous SPAC-deal makers that have come public in this red-hot space, The Fly has you covered with “Charged,” a weekly recap of the top stories and expert calls in the sector.
AUTONOMOUS DRIVING LICENSE:
Tesla is preparing for a potential delay in obtaining Chinese approval for its autonomous driving technology and the company has been told there is no definitive timetable for regulators to approve a license for it to begin widespread training of its “full self-driving” technology, despite an earlier indication that it would get the go ahead in the second quarter of 2025, people with knowledge of the matter told Financial Times‘ Zijing Wu and Stephen Morris.
GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES:
Benchmark analyst Mickey Legg initiated coverage of Tesla. In addition to continued proliferation of the electric vehicle market, Tesla has multiple opportunities to fuel growth, including autonomous vehicles, robotics, and energy generation/storage, the firm tells investors. Benchmark sees the release of more affordable Tesla models in 2025 as “a key catalyst for the stock,” adding that its model has only baked in vehicle growth, “providing significant potential upside should autonomous vehicles and Optimus achieve scale.”
HUMANOID ROBOTICS:
Morgan Stanley notes Bloomberg reports that humanoid robot startup Figure AI is in talks to raise $1.5B in a deal that, if confirmed, would value the company at $39.5B. This would value Figure more than Ford and on par with Stellantis (STLA) and be a greater than 15 times increase in Figure’s valuation as the company was previously valued at $2.6B after a Series B funding round in February 2024 that was participated in by OpenAI, Nvidia (NVDA) and Microsoft (MSFT), the firm tells investors. Bloomberg also reports that Meta (META) is planning to form a new team to conduct work on humanoid robots, the analyst added. Morgan Stanley, which continues to view Tesla as “one of the leading enablers of humanoid robotics in the Western world,” anticipates growing investor interest in Tesla’s role in this potential “multi-trillion” addressable end-market and notes that its current valuation of Tesla does not factor in any value for Optimus.
PLANS ON HOLD:
The State Department said that it had put plans to buy armored electric vehicles on hold after reports that the $400M order would go to Tesla, whose CEO Elon Musk is a close adviser of President Trump, reported The New York Times‘ Jack Ewing. “The solicitation is on hold, and there are no current plans to issue it,” the State Department is quoted as having said.
Click here to check out Tesla’s recent Media Buzz Sentiment as measured by TipRanks.
EV SALES TAX:
A group of Senate Republicans proposed a $1,000 tax on new electric vehicle purchases to account for the cost of federal road repairs, David Shepardson of Reuters reports. The one-time $1,000 fee charged at the time of purchase would be roughly equivalent to what drivers of conventional vehicles pay in federal gas taxes over 10 years for highway funds, said Senator Deb Fischer, the lead sponsor of the measure. Electric vehicle carmakers include Tesla, Rivian Automotive, Lucid Group (LCID), Ford, General Motors, and Toyota (TM).
LUCID:
Benchmark initiated coverage of Lucid Group. After a pause in 2024, domestic electric vehicle production is expected to improve in 2025 and further accelerate in 2026-27 as average selling prices decline and the charging infrastructure is built out, the firm tells investors. In that context, Benchmark views Lucid as “well positioned to achieve significant share of this burgeoning opportunity,” citing its technology, balance sheet, access to capital, Saudi investment, partnerships, “award-winning vehicles” and “highly integrated manufacturing capabilities,” the firm tells investors.
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Originally Posted February 18, 2025 – Charged: Tesla braces for delay in China autonomous driving license
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