Wednesday's earnings did not give Tesla (TSLA) -) bulls much to celebrate. The electric vehicle giant reported an earnings miss and falling gross margins for the quarter. And on the conference call following the release of the report, CEO Elon Musk urged caution, repeatedly citing the threats presented by the current macroeconomic environment, one marked by high interest rates that Musk said are hurting the company's sales.
Shares of Tesla plunged in the aftermath of the report, falling by more than 10% the day following its release. Analysts across the board slashed their price targets as the company's margins begin to resemble its more traditional auto competition, rather than the Big Tech company analysts expect it to become.
The selling continued through Friday, with the shares down another 3.7% to $211.99. For the week, Tesla shares fell 15.6% and are off 29.2% from their 52-week high. But they're still up 72% on the year.
In the midst of the weak report and cautious guidance, not to mention the week's selloff, Ark Invest's hyper-bullish stance on the company remains unchanged. The firm, led by Cathie Wood, made waves in April when it projected that Tesla would be trading at $2,000 per share by 2027.
Related: Cathie Wood explains why Tesla Chief Elon Musk is worth betting so much on
The near-term misses highlighted in the report, according to Ark's director of investment analysis Tasha Keeney, don't impact the firm's longer-term thesis. And even around the misses, she said, there were some positives.
Ark's Tesla bull thesis
The announcement of the Cybertruck delivery event in November, Keeney told CNBC, is cause for celebration. Tesla's ongoing progress in cutting the cost of vehicle production likewise was positive news for the stock.
While Keeney took note of the company's falling gross margins, she reiterated the fact that Ark is more interested in long-term payout. And its long-term bet has little to do with the current state of Tesla as an automaker.
It has to do with robotaxis.
"I think it will be much more profitable than the electric vehicle business and it will totally change the business model," Keeney said.
Ark's ideal future is one in which companies like Hertz, which has already partnered with Tesla, house and maintain fleets of Tesla robotaxis, allowing increasing numbers of people to forego the need to own a car.
The reason Ark is so bullish on the idea of robotaxis is that, coming in cheaper than current ride-hail services, they could change and grow the ride-hail market. And the margins for robotaxis could be far stronger than those Tesla has been reporting as of late.
"Our estimate for our 2027 price target is we think gross margins could be around 50%. That's really driven by the autonomy business," Keeney said.
But even looking now at Tesla in the absence of robotaxi fleets, Keeney said the important point is that a Tesla Model 3 is "cheaper than the average car in the U.S."
"That is huge. That's what consumers look for when they purchase a vehicle," she said. "EVs will continue to take share, and that's not changing."
Earnings were a 'disaster'
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, another prominent Tesla bull, meanwhile found little to champion in the report.
Related: Why Elon Musk says remote workers are 'detached from reality'
"If you looked up disaster in the dictionary, there'd be a video of last night's conference call," Ives told CNBC. "The Street wanted to get details and instead it was Musk putting on his macreconomist hat and that's not what the Street wanted. It was a somber note."
Long-term, Ives thinks that his bullish thesis of Tesla's monetization of software and services still holds. But this earnings report was "definitely a disaster."
"What we got wrong in the short-term was that price cuts were going to end," Ives said. The analyst expected Musk to provide clearer guidance about future price cuts. The CEO instead left the door open for more price cuts with no end in sight, a source of "frustration" for Ives and other investors.
"I would put last night as a top three worst conference calls I've heard from Elon in the last few years," Ives said.
