Matt Debord/Business Insider
- Tesla revealed its highly anticipated Model Y crossover SUV on Thursday at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, California.
- On Friday, analysts said the newly released vehicle - production for which is expected to begin next year - has the potential to claw demand away from the Model 3.
- Watch Tesla trade in real-time.
Wall Street on Friday digested what Tesla's Model Y unveiling could mean for the electric automaker, but analysts spilled as much ink over existing models as they did the new crossover SUV.
Cautious analysts were concerned demand for the new vehicle could draw consumer demand away from the Model 3, compounding what's already viewed by some as a core issue for the model.
'Y Buy a Model 3?' wondered Morgan Stanley's autos analyst, Adam Jonas, in a report out on Friday.
Another Tesla analyst, Craig Irwin at Roth Capital Partners, said in a Friday note that the launch event was likely "pulled forward to distract from weak demand for the Model 3."
The new crossover SUV's four different versions will share the names of the Model 3 variants - Performance, Dual Motor AWD, Long Range, and Standard Range. The first three are expected to arrive in fall 2020, while the latter is expected to be available in spring 2021.
Read more: Tesla opens up orders for its long-awaited Model Y SUV, but production won't begin for a while
As far as the Model Y's price tag, the standard version will start at $39,000 before incentives.
Some bullish analysts were optimistic about the Model Y's potential to broaden Tesla's total addressable market.
"The Model Y is important because entering the SUV/cross over market effectively doubles Tesla's addressable market, but we caution it will likely take two years before the $39k model will be available," Gene Munster, a longtime Tesla bull, wrote in a note prior to the event on Thursday.
Following the event, Munster said in a post that he was surprised initial shipments would begin in the fall of 2020 - a year later than he'd anticipated, since he'd initially expected "a few hundred" produced by the end of 2019.
Tesla shares fell 4% on Friday following the event.
Here's a snapshot of what analysts told clients on Friday following the unveiling.
