Elon Musk discusses Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX at Morgan Stanley's TMT conference

Morgan Stanley reiterated an Overweight rating and $220.00 price target on Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) after Elon Musk answered questions at Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in San Francisco yesterday.

The billionare CEO reiterated his views released on the company’s investor day that it is entirely possible to convert the global fossil fuel economy to renewable with 240 TWh of lithium ion batteries (accumulated production over time), adding that the majority of this would be lithium iron phosphate (LFP), which is comprised of extremely common elements.

Musk also reiterated there is a ‘clear path’ to a car one-half the cost of a Model 3, and that he believes this vehicle will ultimately be used “almost entirely in autonomous mode.” In line with what he previously said about Tesla planning to bring a new purposed-built “robotaxi” electric vehicle to production.

Musk has been promising that Tesla is going to make all its vehicles built since 2016 “full self-driving” through software updates. However, Tesla has so far only delivered “Full Self-Driving Beta”, which is still a level 2 driver assist system as per the automaker’s own admission.

As for SpaceX, Musk’s space exploration and technology company, the CEO believes the company is getting close to first orbital attempt “hopefully in the next month or so.” He added, “I won’t guarantee it gets into orbit… but it will be exciting.” Musk also said that it will take “a couple more years” to achieve full and rapid Starship reusability and that the launch system has the potential to lower the cost of access to space by orders of magnitude, unlocking a path to ‘scale’ the space economy. On Starship's potential for this year, Musk commented that "hopefully there is about an 80% chance of reaching orbit this year."

Musk also says that more than one-half of all satellites in orbit now are Starlink satellites, emphasizing that you can get connectivity “anywhere on earth… from Antarctica to San Francisco.”

Shares of TSLA are down 1.28% in pre-market trading on Wednesday.

By Michael Elkins | [email protected]

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