May 12 - Tesla's (TSLA, Financial) self-driving efforts are drawing fresh attention from analysts, who say autonomous tech could play a central role in the company's growth plans.

While Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software still requires driver oversight, recent updates have added features like traffic light recognition and city street navigation. The company aims to release an “unsupervised” version of the software this year. That version could support Tesla's upcoming robotaxi service, which is expected to debut in Austin, Texas, in June.

Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Delaney reiterated a "Hold" rating last week. He said Tesla's future in autonomy will likely depend on how well it can improve FSD performance and bring down costs.

Piper Sandler's Alexander Potter maintained a "Buy" rating and a $400 price target. He pointed to FSD as the main driver of that bullish outlook. But Piper noted the current version, released over four months ago, still requires human input. The firm believes Tesla may be quietly prepping a safer version ahead of the Austin launch.

Is Tesla Stock a Buy Now?

Based on the one year price targets offered by 44 analysts, the average target price for Tesla Inc is $282.45 with a high estimate of $452.00 and a low estimate of $19.05. The average target implies a downside of -5.30% from the current price of $298.26.

Based on GuruFocus estimates, the estimated GF Value for Tesla Inc in one year is $269.03, suggesting a downside of -9.80% from the current price of $298.26.