A day after the sharpest rally since 2013, Teslas The stock rose to its highest close in more than a year on Friday as investors and analysts continued to applaud the electric car company’s third-quarter results.

Tesla shares rose 2.8% to $267.79 on Friday morning, putting the stock on track for its highest finish since September 2023. With the two days of gains, the stock erased its losses for the year and is now about 8% higher in 2024, still following the 24% increase on the Nasdaq.

Piper Sandler analysts were the latest to raise their price targets after Wednesday’s earnings report. The company, which already had a buy rating on the stock, said it was raising its 12-month share price forecast to $315 from $310 “to reflect higher deliveries and higher margins.”

Shares of Tesla rose 22% on Thursday, their second-best performance since the company’s initial public offering in 2010. That came after Tesla reported revenue of $25.18 billion, just above analysts’ expectations of $25.37 billion was 8% higher than a year earlier. . Tesla reported adjusted earnings per share of 72 cents, higher than the average analyst estimate of 58 cents.

Tesla’s profit margins were boosted by $739 million in revenue from environmental regulatory credits, which JPMorgan Chase analysts noted in a report as a “potentially unsustainable driver” of revenue and cash flow. Results were also boosted by $326 million in revenue from FSD, the company’s Full Self-Driving Supervised system.

CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that his “best guess” is that auto growth will be 20% to 30% next year, citing cheaper vehicles and the “advent of autonomy.” Analysts polled by FactSet expected shipment growth of about 15% by 2025.

When it comes to autonomy, however, Musk has consistently missed his own deadlines to bring products to market. Bernstein analysts wrote in a note after the earnings results that Musk has a “long history of being overly optimistic about FSD,” adding that research shows “Tesla is still far behind the competition” on robotaxis.

Musk also said during the call that Tesla plans to begin production of its recently unveiled Cybercab, a robotaxi with butterfly doors and no steering wheel or pedals, by the end of 2026. He said Tesla would next launch self-driving rides in California and Texas. years in existing cars, which are currently unsafe to operate without a human driver who can steer or brake at any time.

With the two-day rally, Musk has now increased his paper fortune by about $30 billion, bringing his total net worth to about $274 billion, according to Forbes. That means he is $60 billion ahead of the second richest person in the world. Oracle founder Larry Ellison, former Tesla board member and a close friend of Musk.

Still, Tesla shares remain about 35% below their all-time high in 2021. The company had a brutal first quarter of 2024, with deliveries down year-over-year and consumers flocking to electric vehicles from a host of competitors.

Competitive risks remain.

In China, companies like BYD and Geely, along with a new generation of automakers like Li Auto and Nio, have ramped up sales. In the US, legacy automakers Ford and General Motors are starting to sell more electric vehicles, despite declining previous electrification commitments.

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