Tesla Now the Earth's Most Valuable Automaker

With the automotive industry seeing losses across the board, most investors could do nothing but watch in horror as sales reports showed the post-lockdown recovery had not yet begun. But there was a faction that ignored the carnage taking place around them and continued to pump money into their preferred auto brand until it became the most valuable automaker in the world.

While it’s a sin for you not to know, we are obviously discussing Tesla Motors — the infallible, gleaming beacon of modern-day motoring.

The firm officially surpassed mega-giant Toyota on Wednesday, with shares trading as high as $1,228 before tapering off in the evening with a market cap of around $220 billion.

Investors going mental over electric vehicle companies is nothing new. We’ve tracked Nikola’s valuation for a while, and it seems to be completely at odds with anything that makes sense — especially considering it doesn’t produce anything. Tesla also benefits immensely from hype that’s often encouraged by CEO Elon Musk. However, Tesla has the added benefit of selling cars, even if it cannot do so at same pace as Toyota.

According to Tesla’s latest sales report, the firm produced around 90,600 vehicles in the second quarter, with the automaker claiming it has reached pre-pandemic production levels at its main facility in Fremont, California. While healthy numbers for a modestly sized automaker fighting with the local government to keep the factory doors open, Toyota’s production dwarfs the EV company by an almost comical degree. Yet Toyota didn’t surpass its own weak projections, reporting a 35-percent decline for Q2 vs last year.

Market Watch quoted Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives as trying to rationalize the stock disparity. His firm had already upped its price target on Tesla before sales reports manifested. Now it suggests shares could go as high as $2,000.

“In our opinion, a 90,000 delivery number in this COVID lockdown environment is a jaw dropper and the bulls will run with this as a potential paradigm changer moving ahead,” Ives said. “We believe that the China growth story is worth at least $300 per share and $400 in a bull case to Tesla as this [electric vehicle] penetration is set to ramp significantly over the next 12 to 18 months, along with major battery innovations coming out of Giga 3 [in Shanghai].”

Seems like a lot of speculation, but there’s not shortage of anecdotal evidence that Tesla shares seem untethered from the rest of the market. Perhaps $2,000 per share isn’t as impossible as it sounds.

[Image: JL IMAGES/Shutterstock]