"Some People Don't Deserve Teslas": Tesla Stock (NASDAQ:TSLA) Gains as Doors Freeze Shut

After a bit of a disaster yesterday, when German studies found Tesla vehicles woefully unreliable, electric vehicle giant Tesla (TSLA) did what it could to make up the loss. But that was when another problem emerged, as some users found their Tesla impossible to open in the winter. The door handle had frozen shut. Comments quickly became divisive, and some of them proved downright mean. Tesla investors were happy enough, though, as shares gained fractionally in Thursday afternoon's trading.

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One user revealed that she had a hard time opening the door on her Tesla thanks to the door handle being, effectively, frozen shut. She offered up a video of the experience, complete with text overlay reading, "Perks of owning a Tesla in the winter part 1." The response was brisk, and mixed. One user commented, "Some people don't deserve Teslas."

Others, however, offered more tangible help, noting that they could "…push harder, or go into the app and just unlatch the door button, and it just opens for you." But even that brought larger concerns, with one user noting, "A design that needs multiple workarounds to work as well as a normal handle is not a good design." The underlying issue, reports note, is ice building up in the pivot points of the handle mechanism, which keeps the door handle stuck until the ice is cleared.

Maybe the Robots Can Open Them

This news by itself might be limiting, but with the muscle of the United States government reportedly taking aim at the robotics sector, this should be good news for Tesla. Word from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick revealed that meetings have already been taken with CEOs in the sector, and that the administration will be going "all in."

There may even be an executive order coming out next year. The motivation behind this, as Lutnick put it, is the fact that robots "…are central to bringing critical production back to the United States." Between this and the growing move toward artificial intelligence, it suggests that the United States is about to get a lot more automated than normal.

Is Tesla a Buy, Hold or Sell?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on TSLA stock based on 13 Buys, 11 Holds, and 10 Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 20.91% rally in its share price over the past year, the average TSLA price target of $383.04 per share implies 14.57% downside risk.