This is a guest post from the FT’s San Francisco correspondent Patrick McGee. He is the “Me” here.
Me: Well, Tesla has done it: it’s worth $1tn! More valuable than the next nine carmakers COMBINED!
19Bull: OMG I knew it – 1m robotaxis on the road just as my man promised!
Me: Errr… No. None actually, but “Full self driving” is …
19Bull: A full-blown reality — obviously!
Me: Well, 2,000 people are testing it but Elon says left turns don’t work. Might work tomorrow though! Couple bugs to fix.
19Bull: Still, can’t believe they solved autonomy. Imagine the faces of the people who doubted Elon!
Me: Oh they didn’t. It’s just called “full self driving.” It doesn’t actually drive without you. You gotta keep hands on wheel, eyes on road. But it only costs $10,000, so analysts are bullish of wide adoption.
19Bull: Oh… So shares rallied on sales of the Cybertruck!? What’s the production version look like? Pretty sweet I bet!
Me: Nah that’s been pushed back. Hopefully next year. Also it’s not *totally* bulletproof anyway, it turns out.
19Bull: Crazy that it got to $1tn on just the Roadster 2.0!
Me: Yeah … that’s delayed too. Can’t wait until 2023 tho.
19Bull: … Wait, wait, I get it. Was going to be confused, but — phew. Figured it out: Tesla has been dominating the trucking industry since this year’s launch of the Semi!? Amirite?
Me: Hmm. Sort of forgot about that tbh. Hardly even comes up. Fingers crossed on 2022.
19Bull: Wow. I guess their PR dept must be in overdrive.
Me: Actually no, they got rid of their PR department last year so comms are basically just Elon’s tweets these days. He tweets about Dogecoin a lot. It’s gone up in value by like 14,000%.
19Bull: Sorry I misheard you. For a second I thought you said 14 thousand per cent.
Me: Yeah. Elon’s the Dogefather.
19Bull: What?? Jfc. OK but you’re telling me the stock, currently worth $50bn, has rallied 20x in two years just on S3XY production? That’s nuts! Just how much did they exceed Elon’s goal of 1m cars in 2020 by?
Me: Err, they didn’t. Got pretty close though. A nudge under 500k. Pretty, prettaaaay, good.
19Bull: So there’s no autonomy, production has underwhelmed, and they’ve delayed the Roadster, Semi and Cybertruck? … … Gotta admit, I’m kind of at a loss here. I guess the economy has straight up been kicking ass from 2019 onwards?
Me: What, no. Everything’s awful. A pandemic swept the world and 5m people died. We hardly leave our houses anymore.
19Bull: (stunned into silence).
Me: Yeah…
19Bull: How was this pandemic good for Tesla?
Me: It wasn’t. Fremont was shut for weeks. The chips shortage is global now.
19Bull: But Tesla’s outlook is good?
Me: I mean… ish. They’re worried about chips of course. And all the congestion at ports…
19Bull: THEN WHY IS IT WORTH $1TN!?
Me: Oh that’s easy. Glad you asked. You know Hertz? The rental car group? Well it went bankrupt—but it’s back baby! Ordered 100,000 Model 3s. Pretty sweet huh? That’s $4.2bn right there. Stock went up like $200bn. Boom!
Related links:
Billions of blistering barnacles – FT Alphaville
Going back in time and telling a Tesla bull the company is worth $1tn
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