Some skittish Tesla investors have been selling off stock based on the fear that cheaper gasoline prices will diminish sales of the company's electric Model S, but an analyst has pointed out that people rich enough to buy a Tesla aren't exactly doing it to save money on fuel.
"A lot of investors think cheap oil is bad news for Tesla, but it's not that simple," David Whiston, an auto analyst with Chicago-based Morningstar Inc., told Bloomberg News by phone. "People who are buying Tesla today don't really care if gas is cheap or expensive. They want it because it's a status symbol or for the performance or they are very eco-conscious and just don't want to consume fossil fuels, regardless of what they pay for the fossil fuels."
Buyers that can drop more than $100,000 on Tesla's popular electric model just aren't concerned about fuel prices the way the average consumer would be; however, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based automaker has seen a 13 percent decline in shares since Thanksgiving that is said to be driven by the falling cost of oil.
Cheap gas could eventually pose a threat to Tesla if low oil prices are long-term, but that wouldn't happen until Tesla vehicles transition from "status symbols" to something the Honda Civic crowd would drive, Whiston told Bloomberg.
Tesla stock dropped 4.2 percent to $214.36 at the close yesterday for total losses of 14 percent in a full week of traded-down shares.
CEO Elon Musk has already planned to launch a more affordable model that will be called the Tesla Model 3, but its tentative date isn't until 2017--and if Musk's perfectionism over the upcoming Tesla Model X is any indicator, the cheaper drive could be delayed longer than that.
The Silicon Valley headliner continues to make waves with any new details about Tesla. In October, Musk boosted Tesla stock around 5 percent with a pair of tweets hinting at all-wheel drive for the Model S.
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