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Tesla is a stock that carries wildly divergent opinions between bulls and bears. Despite the companys recent successes, hedge fund manager and longtime Tesla bear David Einhorn is still bearish. And he isnt the only one looking for points of attack.

To quantify the divergence, Wall Street analyst price targets for Tesla shares (ticker: TSLA) range from GLJ Research analyst Gordon Johnsons $87 to Piper Sandler analyst Alexander Potters $2,400. The plus-$2,300 bull-bear spread is more than 150% of the current stock price and almost four times as wide as the average bull-bear spread for stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Whats more, only six of 36 analysts rate shares Buy and 15 rate shares Sell. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the Dow is about 55%. The average Sell-rating ratio is about 7%. More than 40% of analysts covering the company rate shares Sell. Thats pretty high.

Einhorn has traded barbs with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over Twitter (TWTR). And in his recent Greenlight Capital investor letter, he says that Tesla vehicles have had reports of unintended acceleration.

The reports arent new and must be balanced by reports that Teslas autopilot software has recorded one accident per 4.5 million miles driven. The U.S. average is one accident per roughly 500,000 miles. Also, the Tesla Model 3 earns a 5-star safety rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and is classified as a 2020 top safety pick.

Tesla wasnt immediately available to comment about any of the recent safety reports.

In addition to Einhorn, David Trainer, CEO of New Constructs, an investment research firm, said in a Wednesday report that Tesla is the most dangerous stock of 2020. Trainer thinks the shares could hit $250 to $300 as traditional auto makers introduce more electric vehicles.

The threat of new competition also isnt new and, indeed, most auto makers have EV models planned. It isnt certain, however, that more EVs will be bad for Tesla. Electric cars represent roughly 2% of global sales. That has to be closer to 50% in about a decade for Tesla stock to keep gaining. No one on Wall Street assumes Tesla will represent a majority of EV sales far into the future. The industry transition to electric powertrains can be a good thing for all EV makers.

Einhorn and Trainer arent the traditional Wall Street analysts that publish research on Tesla stock. Neither is Gary Black, a former Wall Street analyst and fund manager, who posted the Greenlight letter in a tweet. (Greenlights second-quarter letter is available to review through multiple outlets.) He is a Tesla bull and thinks shares can finish the year north of $1,800. Black is banking on the stock being added to the S&P 500 index, and positive reaction to Teslas September battery technology day, to be catalysts for the stock in coming months.

Tesla qualified for S&P 500 inclusion after reporting another GAAP profit in its most recent quarter. GAAP is short for generally accepted accounting principles.

Whatever happens, Tesla will continue to be a much-debated stock. Stocks with eye popping gains tend to be that way. Tesla stock is up roughly 250% year to date and 550% over the past year, far in excess of comparable returns of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average over the same spans.

Tesla stock is off 0.1% to $1,483.47 in Thursday trading.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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Tesla Haters Need New Lines of Attack if They Want to Keep Betting Against the Stock - Barron's