WinterBorn
Diamond Member
The electric-car maker hit a market value of $50.84 billion on Monday, edging past GM (GM) at $50.79 billion.
Tesla loses money, and it sells a small fraction of the cars of its much older competitors. Tesla sold about 25,000 of its Model S and Model X cars in the first three months of the year, compared with 690,000 cars and trucks for GM and 617,000 for Ford in the United States alone.
Rebecca Lindland, executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book, says Tesla is being treated differently than other carmakers. "They're classified as a tech company," she told CNNMoney, "so they're not really held to the same standards."
She adds that while Wall Street focuses on more traditional criteria -- like profitability -- for established companies like Ford and GM, "Tesla kind of gets a free pass."
Idiot investors
it's speculators hoping for a bit hit 20 years or so from now, when the technology matures and the cars 1) enter the cost range of middle income people and 2) they get battery charging down to the 5-10 minute range.
What says Tesla will be the only company in the electric car market twenty years from now?
Ford, GM. Toyota, Honda and many others are in a better position to undercut Tesla in the future.
Current problems with electric cars
1. Range
2. Time to recharge
3. Cost of replacing batteries and disposing of old ones
4. Heavy duty market...Trucks, construction vehicles, tractors
The advantages to the Tesla are many. The two best selling EVs are the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S.
The Leaf has a top range of 120 miles. The Tesla's top range is 351 miles. But given that the average person drives just under 14k miles per year. That works out to about 269 miles a week or 38 miles a day.
Time to recharge is dropping. And since you plug it in overnight, unless you drive a long distance it is not an issue.
I see the heavy duty market expanding in the future. After all, one of the toughest and strongest transportation machines out there is the diesel locomotive. And the diesel is only used to provide electric power the electric motor.