Combining the 5 largest auto manufactures on earth and you are still well short of a trillion dollar company.
Or at least that is how I understand it.
A trillion dollars? For a niche/luxury car company? What fantasy is that based on?
> it's biggest current hurdle is getting it's production up to meet an enormous demand
While enormous to Tesla, actual demand is pretty small compared to other car companies.
It doesn't help that even the most "affordable" Tesla is far more expensive than the average competitor's EV or hybrid vehicle[1][2], let alone it's base price (not final sale price) starts off above the average new car purchase price (final sale, after upgrades, etc) for the entire industry[3].
There's a lot of hype around Tesla, but that doesn't mean they're going to take over the auto industry, let alone become larger than the largest auto makers around who produce "Everyday Joe" cars for the rest of the population.
[1] http://evobsession.com/10-best-electric-cars/
[2] http://www.caranddriver.com/best-hybrid-electric-cars
[3] http://mediaroom.kbb.com/new-car-transaction-prices-up-2-per...
That's a big IF.
Also, it ignores the fact that every car manufacturer already has a plethora of fully electric, or hybrid models available (and they are, on average, far cheaper than the cheapest base model Tesla can offer), and the markets still don't buy them.
This also ignores the fact that many companies make great batteries, and Tesla is only recently sitting down to that table. Why wouldn't Panasonic be that "trillion dollar" company? Or Sony? Or Fujitsu?
Edit: No, really. Ford sold over a million vans, pickups and heavy trucks last year, a market that Tesla has no apparent interest in entering.[1] The Toyota Camry alone sold 428,000 in 2014, the Honda Accord 328,000, the Corolla 340,000, the Ford Fusion 306,000, the Nissan Altima 336,000, and the Honda Civic 326,000.[2] The Tesla Model 3 will presumably be in that latter market (although those are roughly $10,000 cheaper), and if Musk is right about scaling his factory to 500,000/year, it will take a big chunk of it (but still, it's $10,000 more). (If it's in the BMW 3-series/Merc. C-class/Lexus range, 500,000/year would eat all of that market.)
[1] https://corporate.ford.com/content/dam/corporate/en/investor...
It didn't take Apple much to take Nokia out of the game. Nokia had smartphones on the agenda for a long time. The problem was that wasn't their only focus. Apple went all hands into the iPhone.
Huh?
But I mean, couldn't GE do that too? Or Samsung/Murata/Vishay/Maxwell/Panasonic/etc.? It kind of seems like the stocks are trading largely on the strength of Musk's vision. I am kind of okay with letting mad scientists-cum-Bond villains like Musk and Bezos run amok with billions of dollars, though. I mean why not, it's a bit of a wildcard and it makes about as much sense as anything else that's happening right now.
Sure. So could Martha Stewart, or Jeff Bezos.
That hard part is actually doing it and doing it well. Is GE better positioned to do it than Tesla? Not really. It's a complex problem involving advanced software, engineering, branding, customer service, talent retention, supply chain, and myriad other challenges. Tesla is better at some of these things, worse at others. But they're going for it. GE, GM, et al don't appear to be moving aggressively towards these goals at all.
Or space elevators, or flying cars.
This is the goal:
https://www.tesla.com/tesla_theme/assets/img/solar/section-h...
Powerwall Solar roof Car
All made/sold by Tesla.
If Apple can be a multi-billion dollar company making laptops, phones, and an app store, I don't really see the Tesla "could be a trillion dollar company" as too far-fetched.
I mean this is the era when SnapChat is "worth 25 billion".
Anything could be anything. The challenge for Tesla is that they validated the electric car market and managed to carve out some market share, but now they are in the sights of every car manufacturer in the world. It's a different ball game for them. Car companies know how to make cars at scale, Tesla doesn't. It's a big challenge.
Word? https://seekingalpha.com/article/4031938-ford-potential-grow