What's going on ?: Tesla's stock market value is going through the roof

Monday, January 4th, 2021

What's going on there?
Tesla's market value is going through the roof

From Jan Gänger

It is well known that the future is traded on the stock exchange. But the price gains at Tesla are extraordinary: Tesla puts more weight on the scales than the largest automakers put together.

Is this stock market madness or a sober depiction of future power relations? The electrical pioneer Tesla is worth almost 669 billion dollars on the stock exchange – that's as much as the large traditional automakers put on the scales.

To put it into perspective: Toyota is in second place behind Tesla with a market capitalization (that is the number of shares multiplied by the current price) of 215 billion dollars, followed by Volkswagen with 101 billion dollars. Together with Daimler, General Motors, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Fiat Chrysler and Ford, they have a market value of around 669 billion dollars, which is Tesla's level.

In terms of sales, profits and sales figures, the traditional automakers are way ahead of Tesla. Volkswagen alone delivered 6.5 million vehicles in the first nine months of the year marked by the corona pandemic and achieved a net profit of 1.7 billion euros on sales of around 155 billion euros.

Tesla, on the other hand, delivered just under half a million cars, generated $ 20.6 billion in sales and earned a bottom line of $ 451 million. However, a large part of its profit and revenue does not come from the sale of cars, but from the sale of emissions certificates. Manufacturers who have fewer e-cars on offer can improve their carbon footprint by buying these emissions rights, as Fiat has already done on a large scale.

Production in China begins

2020 was an extraordinary year for Tesla and his boss Elon Musk, the 49-year-old became one of the richest men in the world today thanks to a soaring share. At the beginning of the year, production started in the plant in China – the so-called Gigafactory 3, which was completed in just a few months. Around half a million cars are to be built there once a year. In Grünheide in Brandenburg, the company is currently building a factory that will start producing in July – less than two years after Musks announced that it would build a plant in Germany.

Other manufacturers of electric vehicles also have a high stock market valuation. At 76 billion, the Chinese Nio weighs as much as Daimler. Xpeng, also from the People's Republic, reaches 30 billion dollars and is thus roughly ahead of the French PSA or Nissan from Japan.