Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) is one of the market’s most unique battleground stocks. People either love it or they hate it, the financial media's commentary is either euphoric or miserable, and institutional price targets have ranged everywhere from $10 to $2,000.

For the past two weeks, 7investing CEO Simon Erickson has been building a very detailed discounted cash flow for Tesla. He's put all emotions (and social interaction) aside and has let the numbers do the talking -- to develop his most-likely estimate of Tesla's future revenues, operating costs, and capital expenses through the year 2040.

Furthermore, a large part of the Tesla equation lies in the optionality offered by its visionary (and yet eccentric) CEO Elon Musk. Musk has several options of where he could lead Tesla into its future, including full self-driving software subscriptions, autonomous commercial trucks, an on-demand Robotaxi network, or a thousand other AI-based projects.

Yet even with so many potential destinations, the Tesla we know today is still primarily a car company. 92% of its revenue currently comes from selling, leasing, and servicing battery-powered electric vehicles.

IN THIS PART 1 OF 2, Simon describes how he came up with an estimate of $104 per share for Tesla as a car company. The company is aggressively building Gigafactories and ramping up the production of new models, but is also constrained on pricing and by rising competition in China.

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