Gary Zhou 
In a recent TSLA note, Morgan Stanley (MS) recognized Tesla’s disproportionate advantage over legacy automakers as EV adoption accelerates.
In the note Morgan Stanley questioned whether or not President Biden’s proposed $174 billion EV infrastructure bill would exacerbate Tesla’s ‘disproportionate advantage’ in the EV market. Morgan Stanley believes that Biden’s bill would disproportionately benefit Tesla and startups that produce pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the near term.
MS lists several advantages for Tesla, including the production of “higher volume” EV products the company has planned over the next 3 to 5 years. It also pointed out that Tesla already developed a vertically integrated battery supply chain for its EV production, a notable advantage over OEMs. Elon Musk has talked about the issue of battery constraint in the past.
By starting 4680 battery cell production, Tesla aims to address the battery constraint issue it has been experiencing for years. Other EV startups and legacy automakers have talked very little about solving battery constraint issues, probably because they are not ramping EV production to the same degree as Tesla yet. However, battery constraints may become a more significant issue as EV adoption accelerates.
Morgan Stanley noted that the world’s buildout of an EV infrastructure would likely correspond to a volatile period, complicated by the intricacies of national and local laws. These laws would likely present advantages and disadvantages to various OEMs over the following years.
“Very likely, there will be some policies that may incentivize technologies that may not be part of the long term solution, requiring various overhauls along the way. Put it all together and we believe auto investors face greater risk NOT OWNING Tesla shares in their portfolio than OWNING Tesla shares in their portfolio,” Morgan Stanley stated.
