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Morning Report: Why Is Tesla Worth More Than GM?

Morning Report: Tesla is now worth more than GM and Ford. Let’s take a quick peek at the numbers.

Tesla made waves this week when its market cap passed GM and Ford, venerable and largely traditional automotive companies.

As public firms go, Tesla attracts scorn and love in seemingly equal amounts. Skeptics dismiss Tesla investors as dreamers, while Tesla bulls have faith in Elon Musk’s expanding firm to continue changing the landscape of the automotive world.

Regardless of which faction you may wish to pledge fealty, Tesla’s new valuation benchmark was an interesting and important moment. The New York Times put it thusly: “Tesla Hits a New Milestone, Passing G.M. in Valuation.”

The Times, despite having passed many puns in that particular lane, included a chart that is worth our time:

What the hell and whare both pretty good questions to ask in response to this chart.

However, today, instead of diving into the intricacies of Tesla’s financials, or discussions about the future of electric cars, let’s get a feel for the raw numbers behind the companies’ financials.

Numbers

To wit, here are three notable categories of financial performance for each firm in calendar 2016 (Google Finance data):

Revenue:

  • Tesla: $7.0 billion.
  • Ford: $151.8 billion.
  • GM: $166.4 billion.

Gross profit:

  • Tesla: $1.6 billion.
  • Ford: $23.6 billion.
  • GM: $21.3 billion.

Net income:

  • Tesla: -$674.5 million
  • Ford: $4.6 billion
  • GM: $9.4 billion

If you read those numbers and cannot fathom a way in which Tesla is worth anything like the other two, you need two other pieces of information: If you, a private investor, think that Tesla is going to consume every other car company on the planet, the comparative financial metrics are all but meaningless. You should also consider the following:

Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth:

  • Tesla: 73.0 percent
  • Ford: 1.5 percent
  • GM: 9.2 percent

So who is more right? Beats the hell out of me; I invest in index funds.

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Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily.

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