Tesla Is ‘Playing Chess’ While Other Play Checkers. The Stock Keeps Rising.

Shares of Tesla shot up Thursday evening after

General Motors

(GM) and Tesla announced an agreement that will have GM’s electric-vehicle drivers charging at Tesla’s supercharger network. It’s a similar deal Tesla struck with

Ford

(F). RBC analyst Tom Narayan wrote Thursday he expects a similar announcement from

Stellantis

(STLA).

More EVs at Tesla chargers means more revenue for Tesla. The deal brings the sum-of-the-parts, or SOTP, valuation “further into play,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a report Friday. SOTP valuations are one way to value a company. They look to see if the value of different businesses inside a company implies a higher, or lower, stock price.

In the case of Tesla, it sells cars, solar roofs, battery storage products, autonomous driving software, insurance, and, of course, it operates a large network of EV-charging stations.

Ives raised his Tesla stock price target up about 40% to $300 a share from $215. He still rates shares Buy. “In a nutshell, Musk and Tesla are playing chess while other automakers are playing checkers in this broader EV green tidal wave,” he wrote. “We are also adding Tesla to the Wedbush Best Ideas List this morning as the Street starts to better recognize the underlying value in the Tesla EV ecosystem into 2024 and beyond.”

With the change, the average analyst price has risen a couple of dollars to $194 a share. Tesla stock is at almost $250 a share. That’s well beyond the average target price. It happened fast. A couple of weeks ago, Tesla stock was trading for about $185. Including Friday’s early gains, Tesla stock has jumped about 37% over the past 11 trading days.

Just under half, or 49%, of analysts covering the stock rate shares at Buy. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 53%.

Write to Al Root at [email protected]