Mizuho analyst sets Tesla (TSLA) price target to $1,300 as Giga Shanghai starts to return to full capacity after COVID lockdown ends

Shanghai Municipal Government has lifted all the COVID-related lockdown restrictions from the megacity as of today (1st June 2022). Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh restated a Buy rating and set a $1,300.00 per share TSLA price target after receiving a field trip at Tesla’s car factory in Fremont, California.

COVID-related restraints in the city of Shanghai already plagued Tesla’s Q1 2022 production and delivery numbers. The lockdown also extended to the 2nd quarter and has fully ended just today. However, Giga Shanghai had started limited operations towards the end of April.

After touring the Tesla Fremont factory extensively, Rakesh has determined that the automaker will be able to produce ~1.4 million vehicles this year, just short of Tesla’s estimated target of producing 1.5 million vehicles in 2022 (reported by Investing.com).

If lockdowns and the global chip shortage hadn’t been the factors, Tesla would’ve easily reached the target of producing 1 million vehicles in 2021 with just two functional factories (Fremont & Shanghai).

However, as the 2nd half of this year (2H22) approaches, Tesla should be able to get Giga Shanghai back to its full-scale production speed.

However, this year, Tesla has added two more factories to its production ramp-up — Giga Texas and Giga Berlin. At both of these locations, Tesla is currently only producing Model Y mid-size compact electric SUVs. However, Tesla hasn’t yet shared any information about how many vehicles each of these factories are producing per day or per week, perhaps this will be revealed in the Q2 2022 Earnings Call or the upcoming Annual Shareholder Meeting.

Tesla has already sent a massive shipment of Model 3 and Model Y vehicles to Europe last week (drone coverage video below). This demonstrates that Tesla’s Shanghai factory was able to produce a good number of cars despite limited production and COVID restrictions. According to Rakshe’s estimates, Giga Shanghai produced around 40K vehicles in April, down from around 51K compared to January 2022 — a ~22% decrease.

“Support for automobile, integrated circuit, biomedical, and other manufacturing enterprises to lead the chain from point to point, realize the coordinated resumption of work of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain and supply chain, and steadily improve the production rate of enterprises,” Shanghai Municipal Government shared this statement via its official social media account on Sina Weibo.

The city government is keen to resume full-scale production at key manufacturers including Tesla, so the transition back to normal production levels should be sooner than later at Giga Shanghai.

Just recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk praised the hardworking team at Gigafactory Shanghai in a tweet, “I have so much respect for the Tesla Shanghai team,” he said.

However, as of this writing, TSLA share price has already dropped by ~2.70% and is fluctuating between $736 and $738.

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