In the midst of a pandemic, Tesla found a way to rapidly increase the markets

Washington- Tesla, the luxury electric vehicle maker, has turned from a company that caused doubts among Wall Street analysts in 2020 and that aspired to be acquired by Apple to become a monster worth nearly $ 660,000 million, after profit. $ 550 billion in the past 12 months.

In 11 months in 2020, Tesla’s market capitalization quintupled despite the crisis triggered by the pandemic for much of the year, and the electric vehicle manufacturer remains a marginal company in the industry in terms of volume production and sales.

The Fremont-based company, which also has the only assembly plant in the United States, expects to have delivered some 500,000 vehicles by the end of 2020. While this figure is the highest in the company’s history, it is only a fraction of what the major manufacturers in the industry produce.

Last year, the German group Volkswagen produced about 10.8 million vehicles, while the Japanese group Toyota sold 10.7 million units.

The most valuable manufacturer

But despite the differences between the two global car giants and Tesla, the market cap value of the controversial Elon Musk’s company today stands at $ 659.4 billion, while VW’s is $ 233.3 billion and Toyota’s $ 352.6 billion. .

So at $ 660 billion, Tesla is currently the world’s most valuable automaker, far from its main industry competitors.

To put this figure in perspective, Apple, the world’s second most valuable company, behind Saudi Aramco, is valued at $ 2.17 trillion, while Microsoft and Amazon are tied at $ 1.6 trillion.

Tesla’s growth this year is lightning fast. On January 22, 2020, the stock valuation of Tesla, a company founded by Musk and four other entrepreneurs in 2003, surpassed $ 100 billion for the first time when its stock price was $ 592.96.

Rapid emergence

Until then, in just under 10 years, the value of Tesla stock had multiplied by nearly 35 (the stock market started at $ 17 a share in July 2010), despite the fact that the auto company was unable to do so until this year. to generate profit in a sustainable way.

In other words, it took Tesla nearly 10 years to go from $ 1.7 billion in market cap to $ 100 billion, but only 11 months to grow from $ 100 billion to $ 660 billion.

While many analysts remain perplexed about Tesla’s meteoric rise in 2020, if you study the list of the world’s most valuable companies, you can understand one of the main reasons why the electric vehicle manufacturer is where it is and why it is . the distance with your competitors.

Outside of Saudi Aramco, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon are both technology companies. And Musk doesn’t sell cars with Tesla, “he sells technology,” as CNBC television personality and financial analyst Jim Cramer noted.

A technology company

What the market has understood is that the power of Tesla is not electric vehicle technology, but self-driving.

“That is why this young generation is willing to give you money. They say, “It’s Steve Jobs (Apple’s founder). Who knows who will be next to serve. I want to be a part of it. ”Cramer added.

And what Musk has also shown to his fans in recent years is not only that he has the visionary ability of geniuses like Jobs, but that he is willing to do anything or almost anything to carry out his plans.

Two years ago, when the shortcomings in the production of Model 3, Tesla’s “mass” vehicle, practically wiped out the auto company, Musk decided to sleep at the Fremont plant so he could fix the problems that presented themselves.

This year when the California government decided to restrict the spread of COVID-19In closing the Fremont factory, Musk challenged political and medical authorities to continue production of Model 3.

Musk not only kept the assembly plant open, but called the incarceration order “ fascist ” and “ forced incarceration, ” and downplayed the importance of the coronavirus, saying it was no worse than the flu.

All this, while highly controversial, has made 2020 the best year in Tesla’s history. In the first three quarters of the year, the company posted $ 435 million in net profit.

After years of hardship, Musk is so confident in the future of his company that he has even admitted this month that in the past he even thought Tesla would not survive.

“In the darkest days of the Model 3 show, I reached out to Tim Cook (Apple’s CEO) to discuss the possibility that Apple would buy Tesla (for one-tenth of our current value). He declined to accept a meeting, ‘Musk confessed on Twitter.