9 ms·

Tesla shares surpass $1T in value

59 points by brrrrrm 5y ago

endisneigh 5y ago
Tesla should buy all of the remaining rental car companies and do the same with those to go to $2T next year. Today's gains alone for Tesla surpass all American rental companies combined. They could do it if they wanted.
- TuringNYC 5y ago
  They could, but then the purchases would not be independent validation. The value of Hertz purchasing Teslas for their fleet is that Hertz independently came to the conclusion of Tesla's value.
- coralreef 5y ago
  If they figure out self driving, they'll displace car rental companies anyway by being the next Uber.
echelon 5y ago
Every manufacturing nation on earth is ramping up on EV production, and they're not just betting on cars. They're building the exact same infrastructural pieces that Tesla is making. There won't be a single winner. This valuation seems to imply that there will be. I'm not bearish on Tesla or Musk, but this doesn't make sense to me. You can't monopolize these markets.
- writetoalok 5y ago
  And what would you say for the behemoth that is $AAPL? We have had better iPhones for 10+ years … and maybe the iPad, Watch and Airpods… this from the richest gizmo company.. No Apple Car… Pervasive Health product is a long way from the current watch Now tell me again about $TSLA valuation ?!
  - decafninja 5y ago
    I started investing in AAPL around 2005. I remember prevailing repeated opinion back then was that the stock price would soon tank to oblivion because of some kind of Traditional Accounting Principles technobabble. Nowadays everyone is singing praises about how AAPL is one of the best stocks to own ever. I see the same thing happening with TSLA nowadays. Not saying AAPL back then and TSLA today are directly comparable, but a lot of the naysaying about TSLA today is again, often about some kind of Traditional Accounting Principles thingamajig.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    AAPL's P/E ratio is like 30 at the moment. The average for the S&P 500 is 20 and AAPL's isn't much higher than the rest of the industry. TSLA's P/E ratio is 533. It's far beyond its segment and the irrational exuberance of the tech industry.
  - efficax 5y ago
    apple has a 25% profit margin and did 275 billion in gross revenue last year, will likely be >300 billion this year. It's the most profitable company in the world and top 5 in overall revenue. Tesla isn't even in the top 50.
- pengaru 5y ago
  It doesn't have to make sense, market cap is a flimsy meaningless value... If everyone holding TSLA tried selling at this price, a small fraction would manage to execute orders at that price before it plummetted. The thing that doesn't make sense is treating (number of shares * last executed order price) as anything more than just that.
  - Workaccount2 5y ago
    The fact that not everyone is going to sell at once is built into the price.
    - est31 5y ago
      You make it seem that the share price of Tesla is determined by rational decisions. If this is the case, it can't be shaken by "stock price is too high imo" tweets by the boss. He launched a rocket on June 1st 2020, and Tesla stock price went up. Tesla has such a high stock price because of an army of Musk fans believing in him. The company nearly went bankrupt multiple times. The cars are garbage quality. But Musk is awesome at selling dreams.
      - epgui 5y ago
        "garbage quality" In 2021, really? {{citation needed}}
        est31 5y ago
        https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-owner-details-quality-control-issues-remains-supporter-2021-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-owner-details-quality-... https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-quality-problems/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-... https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows-why-automotive-grade-matters https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...
        5y ago
- jack_pp 5y ago
  Amazon is a mostly US company. It didn't monopolize e-commerce globally and it doesn't need to in order to be successful
  - kesselvon 5y ago
    The market for retail as a category is way larger than the market for personal vehicles. Tesla is valued at a price that implies that the majority of cars being produced will be from Tesla. It's a dumb tech stock multiple except the marginal cost of another car isn't zero like it is for a salesforce instance.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  It’s not just EVs though, Tesla is going to vertically integrate and parlay a lot of their EV tech into general energy solutions. The gigafactories and solar installations are the future imo, the cars are the side show.
  - piva00 5y ago
    Yeah, if the future is for Tesla to integrate more storage solutions for the grid with renewables... There is logic in being bullish. Large-scale energy storage is probably one of the most critical sectors not solved of the green energy effort.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Tesla can't compete on energy storage on a $/kWh basis. CATL and BYD have them soundly beat. Yes it's not solved yet but Tesla is not the leader in solving it.
  - kesselvon 5y ago
    The solar business is basically dead. Tesla is a car company that builds electric cars until it shows otherwise.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    Isn't Solar City just a trainwreck? From the acquisition which looked almost entirely like Elon bailing out his brother's business, to all manner of customer complaints now about fragile installations that are having maintenance and reliability issues and people being unable to get that dealt with because everyone involved keeps passing the buck...
    - epgui 5y ago
      It's a work in progress, not a train wreck. On the balance sheet it doesn't look good, but if you think about the strategic impact it will have on the business once they can bring costs down and ramp up installations, I think it's more fair to call it an investment.
- dageshi 5y ago
  Investors seem to pay large premiums for companies that have a certain quality of "we know what the future is and we're building it". All the other companies doing it are somewhat riding on Tesla's coattails. They think Tesla will be around in the future and much bigger than it is now, I'm not sure the same can be said for any other car manufacturer to lesser or greater degrees.
- secabeen 5y ago
  > I'm not bearish on Tesla or Musk, but this doesn't make sense to me. You can't monopolize these markets. TSLA does have a significant moat in the Supercharger network. No other system comes close to what they've built there, and while an alternate system can certainly be built, it's going to take years.
- grecy 5y ago
  > Every manufacturing nation on earth is ramping up on EV production...There won't be a single winner While true, it seems like Tesla has at least a decade head start and can be the "winner" for at least that long. Ford are finally going "all in" with their electric F150 and it could finally be the "Tesla Killer". Ford are planning on these production numbers for the Electric F-150[1]: 2022: 15,000 2023: 55,000 2024: 80,000 I don't see how making 80,000 vehicles in a year 3 years from today is going to have any impact on a company already making a million vehicles this year, and will likely surpass 2 million next year. [1] https://www.electrive.com/2021/08/24/ford-doubles-f-150-lightning-production-numbers/ https://www.electrive.com/2021/08/24/ford-doubles-f-150-ligh...
  - decafninja 5y ago
    While I understand the F-150 is the best selling vehicle in the US, it occupies a distinctly different market than Tesla's current vehicles. The Mustang Mach-E is the better comparison. Then there's the Cybertruck. Despite being a big Tesla fan, my opinion is that it's not going to appeal to the majority of traditional truck buyers. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
    - grecy 5y ago
      > The Mustang Mach-E is the better comparison. I agree. Ford are building only 50,000 of them in 2021, and their "best aiming high hope" is to build 175,000/year sometime in the future. [1] Again, I don't see how building 175,000 vehicles in some future year has meaningful impact on a company that built a million in 2021 and will push close to 2 million in 2022. Even when the "big car companies" want to go all-in electric, they can't. It takes a decade to scale up to what Tesla is doing, even for Ford. [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/23/exclusive-ford-mustang-mach-e-production-capacity-could-be-175000-a-year-maybe/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/23/exclusive-ford-mustang-...
LeoPanthera 5y ago
For those who missed it, this is related to Hertz ordering 100,000 Tesla Model 3s: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/hertz-said-to-order-100-000-teslas-in-car-rental-market-shake-up https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/hertz-sai...
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  Hertz: Places order for $4 billion worth of cars Tesla: Market value increase by $100 billion Yup, this is all very logical. Edit: Guys, we all know the term "Future Value", we all also know its a purposely undefined buzzword you can fit any insanity you want into. Virtually everything a company does adds "Future Value", the question is "How much Future Value". Does selling $4B of cars really signal an entire General Motors worth of value on top of their already insane "Future Value"?
  - mygoodaccount 5y ago
    Expected future value. Most rental companies haven't committed to large EV fleets. This changes things. That said I think the current valuation is a joke.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    That's correct, the stock market uses information from the present to make a determination about the future. Hertz isn't buying Teslas because they are engaged in charity, they are doing it because they likely came to the conclusion that it's cheaper, or more optimal in some sense, to have a fleet of electric vehicles over ICE vehicles. Unless Hertz made a grave miscalculation, one can expect other vehicle rental companies to come to the same conclusion, along with other companies/industries that maintain large fleets of vehicles. This move further entrenches Tesla in the electric vehicle space, along with all other related technologies (electric charging, insurance, battery technology, etc etc...). The truth is that most other car companies are just not well positioned to transition to electric vehicles.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
anonu 5y ago
Incredible move today in $TSLA. I believe Apple was the first trillion-$ US-listed company and made it in August 2018 - 38 years after its listing. TSLA accomplished the same feat in 11 years... That obviously says something about TSLA... but also a $trillion isn't what it used to be. We'll be seeing more trillion-dollar companies in the coming years thanks to inflation.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Just went to Bartell's to buy a coffeepot. The formerly $13 one is now $30.
- TheRealNGenius 5y ago
  Noticed this as well. Speaks volumes of the levels of wealth creation we are seeing in the present. Just 10 years ago, the largest company by market cap was just shy of 400B; the richest man ~70B. Now, top 10 are all routinely above both according to wikipedia. Unicorns will probably give way to Trilobites at this rate ;). Definitely real, but no less elusive in the present day. In the same vein that being a millionaire is no longer as rare as it used to be, I can envision being a billionaire may go the same way in my lifetime. Inflationary pressures or otherwise, it points in part to the futility of directly comparing wealth across time periods, as future generations are able to tap into more leverage from whatever emerging technologies arise.
- scrumbledober 5y ago
  Interesting to note that while it took apple 38 years to get to $1 trillion, they are now three years later sitting at a market cap of $2.46 trillion.
martythemaniak 5y ago
As usual, keep in mind that Tesla shares are very forward-looking. Their current quarterly performance was probably priced in around 2018 and at this point the price is assuming they'll be the largest car manufacturer (they've said they want to do 20 million units by 2030). Given their relative performance over the last few quarters compared to legacy OEMs, it's not very hard to believe. There's also various other bits priced in already - parts of FSD, utility-scale storage. I don't think the Tesla Bot is priced in yet.
- cowmoo728 5y ago
  So Tesla is now worth more than Toyota, VW, Mercedes, GM, BMW, Ford, and Exxon combined. That seems like a lot of "looking forward" to me.
  - martythemaniak 5y ago
    It is, but TSLA has been like this since 2014-ish? They do well on one product and the market automatically thinks they'll make the next one even better. Also, because it's sentiment-driven, it's very volatile. Nothing wrong with trading on sentiment, as long as you know that's what you're doing.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    It depends on how you measure the value of these companies. If you go by market cap then yes Tesla is worth more than all of them combined. The reason for this is that all those other companies you mention have enormous debt, whereas Tesla's debt is fairly negligible. Tesla has 10 billion dollars in debt compared to GM which has over 100 billion dollars in debt or Ford which has over 150 billion dollars in debt.
- chasebank 5y ago
  If TSLA was 'very forward-looking', it wouldn't be so volatile. People are just gambling on stock value. Nothing more, nothing less.
  - martythemaniak 5y ago
wavesounds 5y ago
That's a P/E ratio of 533 for those interested https://www.gurufocus.com/term/pettm/TSLA/PE-Ratiottm/Tesla#:~:text=Tesla's%20Earnings%20per%20Share%20(Diluted,Ratio%20for%20today%20is%20473.79 https://www.gurufocus.com/term/pettm/TSLA/PE-Ratiottm/Tesla#....
- epgui 5y ago
  Yep, and in just one quarter that'll be a PE of ~300. PE ratios change really fast when growth is fast.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  It's 154 if their earnings stay constant for the next 3 quarters. If price stays constant and analysts are accurate, P/E will drop under 100 next year. The P/E was 3000 at the beginning of the year. Tesla's price isn't reasonable yet, but it's getting there fairly quickly.
lgrebe 5y ago
The last 5 of the 18 paragraphs are critical of teslas self-driving efforts.
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  Not sure what the implication is here?
  - decafninja 5y ago
    Many Tesla investor-fans (including some big names) are FSD and/or Robotaxi evangelists. They believe Tesla will continue to be incredibly successful but not because of sales to the public. Rather, the key to Tesla's success will be mass rollout of FSD leading to the Robotaxi fleet. Which in turn will lead to the banning of personal car ownership (save for a few exceptions). Everyone will be using Robotaxis instead. And Tesla, being in a first mover position to take advantage of such a paradigm shift, will continue to skyrocket to success. Some of the extremists want Tesla to stop selling cars to the public ASAP so that they can stock them up for the Robotaxi fleet, which they confidently believe will be here much sooner rather than later. Disclaimer: These aren't my personal views (although I am an investor). Personally I'd rather Tesla downplay the emphasis on FSD/RT, at least until the tech is far more mature than it is now. But I hang out in a few TSLA investor communities where these views are quite popular.
    - FireBeyond 5y ago
      I think Tesla is in real danger with FSD. The much publicized rollout, and reverts of FSD show just how little testing actually goes on at Tesla. It's a really poor look. And Elon's "that's why we're beta testing it publicly!" is the opposite of confidence-inspiring, especially given the latest roll back is due to a slew of phantom emergency braking activations and forward collision warnings. "Move fast and break things" sucks for everyone on the road when it is applied to car technology. The Robotaxi thing, if it ever happens, is easily a decade away, no matter how much he says "this year!" "next year!".
      - 5y ago
JoeAltmaier 5y ago
That's as much a one Vietnam, or two Ukraines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wea...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
goanuj 5y ago
https://www.statista.com/statistics/470829/us-car-rental-average-fleet-of-hertz-global-holdings/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/470829/us-car-rental-ave... Pre-Pandemic Hertz had a fleet of ~500K cars. So 100K represents ~20% of their fleet. Tesla cars keep their resale value (https://insideevs.com/news/490348/tesla-model-3-resale-value-unreal/ https://insideevs.com/news/490348/tesla-model-3-resale-value...) so Hertz should be able to sell them wholesale back to Tesla, Carvana, etc. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/07/13/surprising-facts-about-the-rental-car-industry.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/07/13/surprising...
- throwoutway 5y ago
  Well there goes my plan of buying used Tesla. Rental cars are driven poorly because the drivers don’t care
sidcool 5y ago
This is crazy. I am happy for Tesla, it's an amazing company. But a trillion dollars seems a bit too much.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
For those who missed it. Hertz was bankrupted and it's the investors that saved it, that seem to want the company to buy Tesla. > Hertz’s new owners, Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management, are making clear with this move that they want post-bankruptcy Hertz to have a modern business model in tune with where customer preferences are heading. https://fortune.com/2021/10/25/tesla-stock-hertz-100000-electric-vehicles/ https://fortune.com/2021/10/25/tesla-stock-hertz-100000-elec... I'm really curious how vested ( in stock ) they already were in Tesla :)

59 points by brrrrrm 5y ago

Tesla should buy all of the remaining rental car companies and do the same with those to go to $2T next year. Today's gains alone for Tesla surpass all American rental companies combined. They could do it if they wanted.

TuringNYC 5y ago
They could, but then the purchases would not be independent validation. The value of Hertz purchasing Teslas for their fleet is that Hertz independently came to the conclusion of Tesla's value.
coralreef 5y ago
If they figure out self driving, they'll displace car rental companies anyway by being the next Uber.

echelon 5y ago

Every manufacturing nation on earth is ramping up on EV production, and they're not just betting on cars. They're building the exact same infrastructural pieces that Tesla is making. There won't be a single winner. This valuation seems to imply that there will be. I'm not bearish on Tesla or Musk, but this doesn't make sense to me. You can't monopolize these markets.

writetoalok 5y ago
And what would you say for the behemoth that is $AAPL? We have had better iPhones for 10+ years … and maybe the iPad, Watch and Airpods… this from the richest gizmo company.. No Apple Car… Pervasive Health product is a long way from the current watch Now tell me again about $TSLA valuation ?!
- decafninja 5y ago
  I started investing in AAPL around 2005. I remember prevailing repeated opinion back then was that the stock price would soon tank to oblivion because of some kind of Traditional Accounting Principles technobabble. Nowadays everyone is singing praises about how AAPL is one of the best stocks to own ever. I see the same thing happening with TSLA nowadays. Not saying AAPL back then and TSLA today are directly comparable, but a lot of the naysaying about TSLA today is again, often about some kind of Traditional Accounting Principles thingamajig.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  AAPL's P/E ratio is like 30 at the moment. The average for the S&P 500 is 20 and AAPL's isn't much higher than the rest of the industry. TSLA's P/E ratio is 533. It's far beyond its segment and the irrational exuberance of the tech industry.
- efficax 5y ago
  apple has a 25% profit margin and did 275 billion in gross revenue last year, will likely be >300 billion this year. It's the most profitable company in the world and top 5 in overall revenue. Tesla isn't even in the top 50.
pengaru 5y ago
It doesn't have to make sense, market cap is a flimsy meaningless value... If everyone holding TSLA tried selling at this price, a small fraction would manage to execute orders at that price before it plummetted. The thing that doesn't make sense is treating (number of shares * last executed order price) as anything more than just that.
- Workaccount2 5y ago
  The fact that not everyone is going to sell at once is built into the price.
  - est31 5y ago
    You make it seem that the share price of Tesla is determined by rational decisions. If this is the case, it can't be shaken by "stock price is too high imo" tweets by the boss. He launched a rocket on June 1st 2020, and Tesla stock price went up. Tesla has such a high stock price because of an army of Musk fans believing in him. The company nearly went bankrupt multiple times. The cars are garbage quality. But Musk is awesome at selling dreams.
    - epgui 5y ago
      "garbage quality" In 2021, really? {{citation needed}}
      - est31 5y ago
        https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-owner-details-quality-control-issues-remains-supporter-2021-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-owner-details-quality-... https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-quality-problems/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/03/business/elon-musk-tesla-... https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows-why-automotive-grade-matters https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...
        5y ago
jack_pp 5y ago
Amazon is a mostly US company. It didn't monopolize e-commerce globally and it doesn't need to in order to be successful
- kesselvon 5y ago
  The market for retail as a category is way larger than the market for personal vehicles. Tesla is valued at a price that implies that the majority of cars being produced will be from Tesla. It's a dumb tech stock multiple except the marginal cost of another car isn't zero like it is for a salesforce instance.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
It’s not just EVs though, Tesla is going to vertically integrate and parlay a lot of their EV tech into general energy solutions. The gigafactories and solar installations are the future imo, the cars are the side show.
- piva00 5y ago
  Yeah, if the future is for Tesla to integrate more storage solutions for the grid with renewables... There is logic in being bullish. Large-scale energy storage is probably one of the most critical sectors not solved of the green energy effort.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Tesla can't compete on energy storage on a $/kWh basis. CATL and BYD have them soundly beat. Yes it's not solved yet but Tesla is not the leader in solving it.
- kesselvon 5y ago
  The solar business is basically dead. Tesla is a car company that builds electric cars until it shows otherwise.
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  Isn't Solar City just a trainwreck? From the acquisition which looked almost entirely like Elon bailing out his brother's business, to all manner of customer complaints now about fragile installations that are having maintenance and reliability issues and people being unable to get that dealt with because everyone involved keeps passing the buck...
  - epgui 5y ago
    It's a work in progress, not a train wreck. On the balance sheet it doesn't look good, but if you think about the strategic impact it will have on the business once they can bring costs down and ramp up installations, I think it's more fair to call it an investment.
dageshi 5y ago
Investors seem to pay large premiums for companies that have a certain quality of "we know what the future is and we're building it". All the other companies doing it are somewhat riding on Tesla's coattails. They think Tesla will be around in the future and much bigger than it is now, I'm not sure the same can be said for any other car manufacturer to lesser or greater degrees.
secabeen 5y ago
> I'm not bearish on Tesla or Musk, but this doesn't make sense to me. You can't monopolize these markets. TSLA does have a significant moat in the Supercharger network. No other system comes close to what they've built there, and while an alternate system can certainly be built, it's going to take years.
grecy 5y ago
> Every manufacturing nation on earth is ramping up on EV production...There won't be a single winner While true, it seems like Tesla has at least a decade head start and can be the "winner" for at least that long. Ford are finally going "all in" with their electric F150 and it could finally be the "Tesla Killer". Ford are planning on these production numbers for the Electric F-150[1]: 2022: 15,000 2023: 55,000 2024: 80,000 I don't see how making 80,000 vehicles in a year 3 years from today is going to have any impact on a company already making a million vehicles this year, and will likely surpass 2 million next year. [1] https://www.electrive.com/2021/08/24/ford-doubles-f-150-lightning-production-numbers/ https://www.electrive.com/2021/08/24/ford-doubles-f-150-ligh...
- decafninja 5y ago
  While I understand the F-150 is the best selling vehicle in the US, it occupies a distinctly different market than Tesla's current vehicles. The Mustang Mach-E is the better comparison. Then there's the Cybertruck. Despite being a big Tesla fan, my opinion is that it's not going to appeal to the majority of traditional truck buyers. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.
  - grecy 5y ago
    > The Mustang Mach-E is the better comparison. I agree. Ford are building only 50,000 of them in 2021, and their "best aiming high hope" is to build 175,000/year sometime in the future. [1] Again, I don't see how building 175,000 vehicles in some future year has meaningful impact on a company that built a million in 2021 and will push close to 2 million in 2022. Even when the "big car companies" want to go all-in electric, they can't. It takes a decade to scale up to what Tesla is doing, even for Ford. [1] https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/23/exclusive-ford-mustang-mach-e-production-capacity-could-be-175000-a-year-maybe/ https://cleantechnica.com/2021/08/23/exclusive-ford-mustang-...

LeoPanthera 5y ago

For those who missed it, this is related to Hertz ordering 100,000 Tesla Model 3s: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/hertz-said-to-order-100-000-teslas-in-car-rental-market-shake-up https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/hertz-sai...

Workaccount2 5y ago
Hertz: Places order for $4 billion worth of cars Tesla: Market value increase by $100 billion Yup, this is all very logical. Edit: Guys, we all know the term "Future Value", we all also know its a purposely undefined buzzword you can fit any insanity you want into. Virtually everything a company does adds "Future Value", the question is "How much Future Value". Does selling $4B of cars really signal an entire General Motors worth of value on top of their already insane "Future Value"?
- mygoodaccount 5y ago
  Expected future value. Most rental companies haven't committed to large EV fleets. This changes things. That said I think the current valuation is a joke.
- Kranar 5y ago
  That's correct, the stock market uses information from the present to make a determination about the future. Hertz isn't buying Teslas because they are engaged in charity, they are doing it because they likely came to the conclusion that it's cheaper, or more optimal in some sense, to have a fleet of electric vehicles over ICE vehicles. Unless Hertz made a grave miscalculation, one can expect other vehicle rental companies to come to the same conclusion, along with other companies/industries that maintain large fleets of vehicles. This move further entrenches Tesla in the electric vehicle space, along with all other related technologies (electric charging, insurance, battery technology, etc etc...). The truth is that most other car companies are just not well positioned to transition to electric vehicles.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

anonu 5y ago

Incredible move today in $TSLA. I believe Apple was the first trillion-$ US-listed company and made it in August 2018 - 38 years after its listing. TSLA accomplished the same feat in 11 years... That obviously says something about TSLA... but also a $trillion isn't what it used to be. We'll be seeing more trillion-dollar companies in the coming years thanks to inflation.

WalterBright 5y ago
Just went to Bartell's to buy a coffeepot. The formerly $13 one is now $30.
TheRealNGenius 5y ago
Noticed this as well. Speaks volumes of the levels of wealth creation we are seeing in the present. Just 10 years ago, the largest company by market cap was just shy of 400B; the richest man ~70B. Now, top 10 are all routinely above both according to wikipedia. Unicorns will probably give way to Trilobites at this rate ;). Definitely real, but no less elusive in the present day. In the same vein that being a millionaire is no longer as rare as it used to be, I can envision being a billionaire may go the same way in my lifetime. Inflationary pressures or otherwise, it points in part to the futility of directly comparing wealth across time periods, as future generations are able to tap into more leverage from whatever emerging technologies arise.
scrumbledober 5y ago
Interesting to note that while it took apple 38 years to get to $1 trillion, they are now three years later sitting at a market cap of $2.46 trillion.

martythemaniak 5y ago

As usual, keep in mind that Tesla shares are very forward-looking. Their current quarterly performance was probably priced in around 2018 and at this point the price is assuming they'll be the largest car manufacturer (they've said they want to do 20 million units by 2030). Given their relative performance over the last few quarters compared to legacy OEMs, it's not very hard to believe. There's also various other bits priced in already - parts of FSD, utility-scale storage. I don't think the Tesla Bot is priced in yet.

cowmoo728 5y ago
So Tesla is now worth more than Toyota, VW, Mercedes, GM, BMW, Ford, and Exxon combined. That seems like a lot of "looking forward" to me.
- martythemaniak 5y ago
  It is, but TSLA has been like this since 2014-ish? They do well on one product and the market automatically thinks they'll make the next one even better. Also, because it's sentiment-driven, it's very volatile. Nothing wrong with trading on sentiment, as long as you know that's what you're doing.
- Kranar 5y ago
  It depends on how you measure the value of these companies. If you go by market cap then yes Tesla is worth more than all of them combined. The reason for this is that all those other companies you mention have enormous debt, whereas Tesla's debt is fairly negligible. Tesla has 10 billion dollars in debt compared to GM which has over 100 billion dollars in debt or Ford which has over 150 billion dollars in debt.
chasebank 5y ago
If TSLA was 'very forward-looking', it wouldn't be so volatile. People are just gambling on stock value. Nothing more, nothing less.
- martythemaniak 5y ago

wavesounds 5y ago

That's a P/E ratio of 533 for those interested https://www.gurufocus.com/term/pettm/TSLA/PE-Ratiottm/Tesla#:~:text=Tesla's%20Earnings%20per%20Share%20(Diluted,Ratio%20for%20today%20is%20473.79 https://www.gurufocus.com/term/pettm/TSLA/PE-Ratiottm/Tesla#....

epgui 5y ago
Yep, and in just one quarter that'll be a PE of ~300. PE ratios change really fast when growth is fast.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
It's 154 if their earnings stay constant for the next 3 quarters. If price stays constant and analysts are accurate, P/E will drop under 100 next year. The P/E was 3000 at the beginning of the year. Tesla's price isn't reasonable yet, but it's getting there fairly quickly.

lgrebe 5y ago

The last 5 of the 18 paragraphs are critical of teslas self-driving efforts.

FireBeyond 5y ago
Not sure what the implication is here?
- decafninja 5y ago
  Many Tesla investor-fans (including some big names) are FSD and/or Robotaxi evangelists. They believe Tesla will continue to be incredibly successful but not because of sales to the public. Rather, the key to Tesla's success will be mass rollout of FSD leading to the Robotaxi fleet. Which in turn will lead to the banning of personal car ownership (save for a few exceptions). Everyone will be using Robotaxis instead. And Tesla, being in a first mover position to take advantage of such a paradigm shift, will continue to skyrocket to success. Some of the extremists want Tesla to stop selling cars to the public ASAP so that they can stock them up for the Robotaxi fleet, which they confidently believe will be here much sooner rather than later. Disclaimer: These aren't my personal views (although I am an investor). Personally I'd rather Tesla downplay the emphasis on FSD/RT, at least until the tech is far more mature than it is now. But I hang out in a few TSLA investor communities where these views are quite popular.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    I think Tesla is in real danger with FSD. The much publicized rollout, and reverts of FSD show just how little testing actually goes on at Tesla. It's a really poor look. And Elon's "that's why we're beta testing it publicly!" is the opposite of confidence-inspiring, especially given the latest roll back is due to a slew of phantom emergency braking activations and forward collision warnings. "Move fast and break things" sucks for everyone on the road when it is applied to car technology. The Robotaxi thing, if it ever happens, is easily a decade away, no matter how much he says "this year!" "next year!".
    - 5y ago

JoeAltmaier 5y ago

That's as much a one Vietnam, or two Ukraines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wealth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wea...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

goanuj 5y ago

https://www.statista.com/statistics/470829/us-car-rental-average-fleet-of-hertz-global-holdings/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/470829/us-car-rental-ave... Pre-Pandemic Hertz had a fleet of ~500K cars. So 100K represents ~20% of their fleet. Tesla cars keep their resale value (https://insideevs.com/news/490348/tesla-model-3-resale-value-unreal/ https://insideevs.com/news/490348/tesla-model-3-resale-value...) so Hertz should be able to sell them wholesale back to Tesla, Carvana, etc. https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/07/13/surprising-facts-about-the-rental-car-industry.aspx https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/07/13/surprising...

throwoutway 5y ago
Well there goes my plan of buying used Tesla. Rental cars are driven poorly because the drivers don’t care

sidcool 5y ago

This is crazy. I am happy for Tesla, it's an amazing company. But a trillion dollars seems a bit too much.

NicoJuicy 5y ago

For those who missed it. Hertz was bankrupted and it's the investors that saved it, that seem to want the company to buy Tesla. > Hertz’s new owners, Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management, are making clear with this move that they want post-bankruptcy Hertz to have a modern business model in tune with where customer preferences are heading. https://fortune.com/2021/10/25/tesla-stock-hertz-100000-electric-vehicles/ https://fortune.com/2021/10/25/tesla-stock-hertz-100000-elec... I'm really curious how vested ( in stock ) they already were in Tesla :)