Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) FSD – the autonomous driving technology – has been a powerful driver of the electric vehicle (EV) maker’s stock market performance, but one Wall Street expert, Gordon Johnson of GJL Research, also sees it as a major valuation risk.
Specifically, the analyst took to X on March 15 to explain that the program could ultimately lead to TSLA shares collapsing as much as 80% in the second half (H2) of 2026: from the press time price of $394.39 to $78.88.
The crux of Johnson’s argument comes in the form of Elon Musk having a track record of either intentionally or accidentally overpromising and underdelivering essentially every year in the last decade, while also setting H1 of 2026 as a hard deadline for FSD.
Indeed, the Wall Street expert believes that Tesla stock investors and other backers have an unrealistic expectation for what the company’s self-driving will actually look like and how extensively it will be proliferated in the coming months.
Johnson points to the history of Musk’s broken promises
Gordon Johnson – who has been critical of the camera-only approach of the EV maker for years – believes that ‘FSD does not work,’ thus making it impossible for Musk to fulfil his promises.
“(Musk) made a huge mistake when he put an “expiration date” of 1H26 on the “FSD” promise that he’s been using as a carrot for investors, always promising it’s near complete, since 2016”, the analyst wrote before adding that “many think it impossible that he’ll miss such a(n) important deadline given it accounts for ~80% of $TSLA’s value.”
To further reinforce his argument, the Wall Street expert highlighted a series of previous broken promises, overtly mentioning the forecast that there would be ‘a million robotaxis on the road by 2020,’ the 2016 claim ‘that a Tesla car would drive itself coast to coast in 2yrs,’ ‘ the $35K model 3,’ and several others.
Could Tesla stock suffer the fate of Nikola EV trucks?
Perhaps the most damning example provided by Johnson involves the infamous 2016 ‘Paint it Black’ video that claimed to show an autonomous vehicle but was, according to numerous reports, faked.
The incident is of particular note since it represents an uncomfortable parallel with the now-bankrupt electric truck company Nikola, which, in 2018, faked a video to exaggerate the power of its vehicles by having them roll downhill while using camera angles to obfuscate the slope.
Wall Street remains confident Tesla stock will evade a crash
Elsewhere, it is worth noting that Gordon Johnson has a history of making exceptionally bearish forecasts for Tesla stock, and if many of Elon Musk’s promises went nowhere, TSLA shares also never crashed near GJL Research’s 12-month price targets.
Most of Wall Street remains confident a crash will not come for the EV maker and, per the data Finbold retrieved from TipRanks on March 16, the car company’s equity is overall rated as a ‘Hold.’ Similarly, Tesla stock is, on average, expected to hit $399.25 in the coming 12 months.
GJL Research’s own most recent TSLA price target would have it fall to $25.28, while Johnson’s comments about FSD accounting for 80% of the EV maker’s valuation imply a collapse to $78.88 in less than 12 months.
Similarly, even if the analyst is correct in estimating that ‘FSD does not work,’ Tesla has so far evaded most possible consequences of failing to fulfill Musk’s promises.
On the other hand, however, the company’s recent trend of declining deliveries, paired with other bearish pressures, does increase the risk that investors might finally lose patience in 2026, barring a material breakthrough.
Featured image via Shutterstock
