Tesla's P/E ratio is literally 1000-1[A]. Most of that market cap of $20B is based on expectations that Tesla is going to have hockey-stick growth rates over t

Tesla's P/E ratio is literally 1000-1[A]. Most of that market cap of $20B is based on expectations that Tesla is going to have hockey-stick growth rates over the next 5-10 years. So in order to keep that stock price, they need to go gangbusters - "we sold more cars than last year" is bad news for them because investors are counting on them to like double or triple sales. A sustained anti-Tesla campaign (which you'll notice is already underway) combined with a few minor setbacks could cause some big stock price losses and make Tesla a more attractive buy. Personally though, I don't think it's that likely that Tesla will be acquired in the near term. The only reason the article gives is "GM sucks at making electric cars for consumers" and buying Tesla would help GM solve that problem. But the fact is that Tesla hasn't yet solved the real problem either - they can build kickass electric sports cars and luxury sedans, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a viable consumer car. Ford and GM have tried selling consumer-model electrics and they've failed because of budget - when you try to build an electric car with today's tech for $30K (the average US new car price) you wind up having to make a lot of compromises, even accounting for the generous tax credit. Ford and GM are building inadequate electric cars at roughly the $30K pricepoint, while Tesla's building a great electric car at twice the price. Tesla's doing a lot of clever engineering and making good cars, but it's not really clear to me that "cut the Model S's price in half" is so much easier than "make the Volt/Leaf/etc. not suck" to justify a buyout/merger. [A] - Stock price divided by this quarter's project earnings per share.